peacenik

I am a Christian, and I do not understand why Christians make such a fuss about the theory of evolution. Maybe this is because I do not see the need in interpreting every piece of the Bible literally; text can after all provide moral guidance without being innerrant. However, isn't it possible to believe in evolution, yet believe that God designed the process of evolution, or that God created the universe through a Big Bang. After all, Scientists can not account for the first infintesimally small morsel of time before the Big Bang occured.

Nic Tamzek

Yes, both are possible. If God can be said to, say, have acted in the founding and persistance of the United States, or any of a thousand other places where God is thanked/given credit for non-miraculous events, then evolution could have worked the same way, just another instance of God working through natural processes.

This kind of thing is not science and is not compelled by empirical evidence, but then who said religion had to be like science anyway? (answer: insecure IDists at the DI)

All the other problems that are usually cited for Christianity from evolution: e.g., death, evil, humans too minor a part of the universe, etc. -- are actually just problems of generic reality that would exist just as much if evolution was totally overturned. Sophisticated Christians have long had answers to these problems. One can argue about whether or not those answers are right, wrong, or indeterminate, but evolution doesn't change the equation either way.

Evolution only causes problems for:

(1) the Argument from Biological Design, which AFAICT was only popular post-Newton anyhow (Newton: "Universe was created; it happens to work like a clock"; Paley: "Organisms work like a clock; they must be directly designed also"; Hume: "These analogies suck"; Darwin: "Here's how natural processes could create these designs"). You don't see any "Hey, organisms are like machines" in the Bible, you only see it once people started inventing reasonably complex machines.

(2) Biblical "literalism", which was invented by the seventh-day adventist cult in the late 1800's-early 1900's and then spread in the 20th century to a large number of evangelical groups, most of whom are unaware of its deviant origins. See:

Numbers, Ronald. The Creationists. 1992 and his various other books.

I just got to see him talk, here is the link:
http://www.srhe.ucsb.edu/lectures/info/numbers.html

He has a very interesting personal history, raised as a seventh-day adventist, became a historian, actually went back and read the early seventh-day adventist literature (Ellen White, etc.), and eventually got exposed to some geology and went through the usual YEC-->OEC-->TE etc. conversion, resulting family problems (father was a preacher).

End ramble.

Anyhow, you should read:
Ruse, Michael, "Can a Darwinian be a Christian?"


Technically, I think time didn't exist "before" the Big Bang, or so the physicists tell me. For that matter, under some versions of cosmology the energy of expansion is exactly balanced by the pull of gravity of the matter in the universe, such that, technically, nothing currently exists if you add it all up. Hey, don't ask me how it works.

I regard the whole origin-of-everything question as so mind-boggling that, well, I have no idea what to think. Which is why I'm agnostic. I think. But I don't begrudge people their gut feelings either way on the question, your guess is as good as mine.

judge

I agree peacenik....woe unto me if I know the right doctrine but don't be loving merciful and just. I mean, what would be the point of knowing all the right stuff but being a real *****?

However, that said, the only attempt to logically use craetion rather than evolution to help us understand who and what we are can be found in the work of Arthur. C. Custance.

http://www.custance.org/Library/SOTW/Index.html

http://www.custance.org/Library/Volume5/index.html

This stuff does not deal with the big bang, but he does try to logically connect together redemption specifically in relation to man being a special creation.

hezekiah jones

Originally posted by peacenik
... I do not understand why Christians make such a fuss about the theory of evolution.

Personally, I think it's that "image of God" deal, and the fact they don't like being just clever apes with lower back problems and indoor plumbing.

simian

peacenik,

Most denominations of Christianity (or rather, the denominations that represent the majority of Christians) don't see any reason to put the two at odds. Since the bible was studied as a human manuscript (still allowing for devine inspiration), it can also be admitted the first creation stories in the bible are at odds. The religion professor here will state that there are bits and pieces of another 18 creation stories in the bible (again, usually at odds).

That the bible is no more correct about how humans came to be than the shape of the earth (remember the devil taking Jesus to the top of a very tall mountain to see "all the kingdoms of the earth"?) should cause no real surprise.

Now, the question is, how to move Christianity away from fundamentalism and toward the version of Christianity you appear to have?

Simian

Tom Sawyer

I think that the main problem comes from the fact that the Bible specifically says that God created man. Although I don't think that it mentions how He created us, it implies that He just brought us about from nothing. The world and universe were brought into existence for our benefit and we're the center of everything.

Evolution specifically says that we evolved just like every other species on this planet and there's nothing all that different about us or the way in which we developed. It gets away from the whole idea that we are special and that the world and universe exist for our benefit and we're not all that special.

Some people can deal with that distinction and others can't. If you can, you end up with an opinion similar to yours. If you can't, you either become a Biblical literalist and think that there's something fundamentally flawed with the scientific process that contradicts the Bible or you accept the fact that the Bible is just a collection of ancient stories that don't have anything to do with anything.

Oolon Colluphid

One could ask, 'why bother'? Why not just ditch the lot? On this I have some grudging respect for creationists: once you admit the bible's just a load of old stories, why stop there? Or rather, if one allows rational thought and evidence in in one area, why not for the whole kit 'n' caboodle?

I've often wondered about this. Ockham's Razor, you see, cuts both ways. Could any theistic evolutionists here please explain how you rationalise sticking hard to evidence on evolution, yet ignore the consequences of being evidence-based for your faith? Where's the parsimony?

Cheers, DT

mecca777

In fact, Genesis 2:7 is quite specific:
Guess the old fella forgot about Genesis 1:27-28.
Incidentally, my Holy Babble is dated 1859 - the same year that a little-known work entitled The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published. I have always loved the last paragraph of notes at the end of Genesis in my Bible, which begins "The unchanged habits and manners of the Arab tribes still confirm the accuracy of the descriptions found of the manners and customs of the patriarchs..." and ends "...and after the lapse of nearly six thousand years each adventurous inquirer but more strongly confirms the truth of that word, which alone describes the world as it was 'IN THE BEGINNING'."

emotional

Evolution is a creative process that involves struggle, blood, pain and suffering. It is a process where the unfit are weeded out mercilessly. All creatures are let to fight for themselves. The lion is permitted to eat the lamb, and the lamb is graciously permitted to scream in pain while the lion does that.

To put it bluntly: evolution is not a kind process of creation. An omnibenevolent God wouldn't do that. Evolution disproves the existence of an omnibenevolent deity. So evolution disproves Christianity. And any other religion that claims the existence of an omnibenevolent creator.

So much for the "separate magisteria" of science and religion...

Undercurrent

The very simple reason is because the bible is wrong. The bible says that the entire universe was created in seven days. This is wrong.

It's perfectly all right for a group of nomadic goat herders to be wrong, but it pretty much destroys the possibility that they are just transcribing the ideas of the omnicient creator of the universe. And since the bible is therefore obviously, at best, jointly authored by the omnicient deity and ignorant goat-herders together, with no clear demarkation of which author wrote which parts, it's harder to claim that it holds any power. How do you know that any doctorine you take from the bible is from God or some second millenium BCE scribe trying to make a name for himself?

Liberal christians try to come up with some rules to tell which parts are by God and which parts are by goat-herders. Conservative christians just ingore the problem by denying the premise.