GeoTheo

I don't neccesarily think that a Christian who believes in evolution is not a real Christian, but how can they be a "real" evolutionist?
Don't they have to believe evolution is guided in some way? Wouldn't they have to believe that Man was a goal somehow?

KnightWhoSaysNi

GeoTheo,

I think you might want to check out the book Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller. That's on my list of "books to read" this summer, along with The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins and No Logo by Naomi Klein.

Kenneth Miller is a Roman Catholic and cell biologist who accepts evolution. I remember seeing him talk about his views on the PBS Evolution series. I'll get a better understanding when I read his book and I'll bring it up on the forum later.

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Nightshade ]</p>

WinAce

This is a tough question indeed. As someone who's run the gamut from YEC to theistic evolutionist to deist to atheist, I feel at least somewhat qualified to answer it...

First off, there is the matter of God's omniscience--since he supposedly knew how everything would turn out, merely setting the Big Bang in motion in a certain way would make the rest of the events unfolded over billions of years ultimately result in human beings (if that was his intent). Thus, there's nothing in evolution, big bang cosmology, abiogenesis or any other scientific theory per se that directly contradicts man being the goal of an intelligent being. They do, when strongly corroborated, merely make his direct influence with unknowable supernatural processes unnecessary. That's not to say it didn't occur, but only that it need not have.

I hope that at least helps you make an informed decision on this touchy subject. Now my own opinion:

The fossil record is basically directionless. It takes turns, branches off, goes back for a little while, results in apparently gratuitous extinctions, and displays life being limited by previous design. We see the same things in our genome and anatomy. We're the result of evolution, not direct intelligent design, although evolution might be the mechanism of such design, just as we use genetic algorithms.

This does, however, raise the thorny theological problem of why God, in his power, just didn't short-circuit the billions of years of development, death, suffering, etc. required to produce the current diversity of life on earth via evolution and poof everything into existence with efficient, ground-up design, such as that humans usually make. Or why he didn't set the Big Bang in motion in such a way that evolution would take the cleanest path possible directly to human beings, as opposed to being a classic example of randomness battling other natural laws in an inefficient tug-of-war.

This is one of the many problems that ultimately led me away from religion in general, because it quite frankly doesn't make sense unless you really want it to. I hope you find the answers you honestly seek, whatever they turn out to be.

Dr Rick

Excellent, succinct argument against both ID and omnibenevolence.

Rick

Undercurrent

If by "evolutionist" you mean "someone who believes that evolution ocuured in pretty much the modern science says it did" then I'm qualified to answer.

(Sometimes people use the term "evolutionist" to mean "someone who places evolution on the same pedistal that monotheists reserve for God" in which case I'd agree that it would make little sense to be a christian and an evolutionist at the same time, but would deny that there is any singificant number of evolutionists. But I digress...)

Back when I was a theistic evolutionist, I believed that evolution admitted no detecable design and felt that a god was subtly pulling the strings in the background in ways that were undetectable to science (e.g. making specific mutations happen to create humans, but hiding it by also making other mutations happen to create creatures other than humans.)

What led me away from this belief is pretty much what WinAce said. A god need not work in that way, and if he purposefully went out of his way to act in ways that were not detectable to us, he must want us not to believe in him. Happy to oblige.

m.

MrDarwin

Here are two possibilities:

1. some entity--the Christian God or something else--created life on this planet and then stepped back but knew, given how the life was created and the current and future conditions it would be exposed to, exactly how it would turn out (the Christian God is supposed to be omniscient, after all);

2. this entity created life on this planet and then left it pretty much alone, but occasionally stepped in to alter the course of evolution--by causing a mutation, by selecting one particular lineage over another, by diverting an asteroid into the earth--in such a way that we atheists and agnostics would interpret it as completely random.

Starboy

Wouldn't it depend on how active they think god is in the universe? Does a Christian have to think that god is always active in everything? How do you feel about this GeoTheo?

Starboy

Badfish

Why evolution? God never said anything about evolution, he created man "as is", to say ANYTHING else, is just nonsense coming from a Christian.

With missing transitional fossils and other missing links, it is just baloney for a Christian to believe this.

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: GTX ]</p>

Peregrine

In the same episode there is a Kevin or Keith Miller, a professor from U of Kansas, who is a fundamentalist and accepts evolution. One of his positions is that from our Homo sapien precursor, God chose a male and female to be Adam and Eve and from them modern man evolved. If he has written anything, it would probably be an interesting read.

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Peregrine ]</p>

Badfish

It is a good science and all, but for a Christian to believe this, they must be thinking of a different Christian God, and NOT the one in the Holy Bible.

The bible is clear on it's account of creation, and one will find nothing in the bible to support evolution.