Question posed to me by a friend

sliderman69 · #1 4th April 2007, 08:05 AM

Hello and welcome all this is my first time to this forum and its great to see it full of interested intelligent people! Im not sure if this is the right place to post here but my friend recently told me that it is impossible to believe in both evolution and believe in christianity.

His logic went (something) like this:
+ Believing in evolution means you don't belive in adam+eve
+ This leads to there being no original sin
+ This leads to the reason Jesus being on earth and dying null and void

Not sure how to approach him as I didnt really have an answer, and it has really confused me! I hope that someone can give me some useful guidance as to how I can reply (cus at the moment he makes sense to me).

Many thanks in advance for all your thought-provoking and intelligent answers!!!!!!!!!

JohnHarthover · #2 4th April 2007, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by sliderman69

Hello and welcome all this is my first time to this forum and its great to see it full of interested intelligent people! Im not sure if this is the right place to post here but my friend recently told me that it is impossible to believe in both evolution and believe in christianity.

His logic went (something) like this:
+ Believing in evolution means you don't belive in adam+eve
+ This leads to there being no original sin
+ This leads to the reason Jesus being on earth and dying null and void

Not sure how to approach him as I didnt really have an answer, and it has really confused me! I hope that someone can give me some useful guidance as to how I can reply (cus at the moment he makes sense to me).

Many thanks in advance for all your thought-provoking and intelligent answers!!!!!!!!!

I am not a Christian, but I think it is safe to say that if you believe in the theory of evolution, then you cannot believe in a completely literal interpretation of the Bible. However, if you accept that at least some parts of the Bible are metaphorical then you can view Adam and Eve as either being metaphorical or as a couple of humans that were the ancestors of the rest of humanity (or a large portion of it) that came along as some point in our species' history.

Nitron · #3 4th April 2007, 10:22 PM

-My favourite interpretation- Jesus died to free us from our animal natures.
- Or perhaps Adam and Eve had bodies similar to what we will have when we go to heaven (if we go to heaven) and were given ape bodies as a consequence of the fall. (I'll ty to dig up Punchy's thread)

lucaspa · #4 11th April 2007, 06:07 PM

Originally Posted by sliderman69

Hello and welcome all this is my first time to this forum and its great to see it full of interested intelligent people! Im not sure if this is the right place to post here but my friend recently told me that it is impossible to believe in both evolution and believe in christianity.

His logic went (something) like this:
+ Believing in evolution means you don't belive in adam+eve
+ This leads to there being no original sin
+ This leads to the reason Jesus being on earth and dying null and void

Yes, this is the faulty logic that creationists use to scare people and set up the false dichotomy of Christianity or evolution.

What is forgotten is that Jesus died for our sins. Not Adam and Eve's sin, but the sins each of us commits.

Nor is it mentioned that sin will be passed down from generation to generation in Genesis 3. The punishments are quite specific, and that isn't one of them.

What we have here is Paul's theology. Paul was trying to find a way to make the Torah essential to the Gentiles. This was tough because 1) the Torah doesn't mention Jesus and 2) Paul had told them the Torah didn't apply anymore! So Paul makes a connectiong between Adam and Jesus. He tries 2 approaches: Jesus as the new Adam and this one.

Basically, most Christians look on Adam and Eve as the allegory it is. Adam means "dirt" in Hebrew and Eve means "hearth". So we have a story of Dirt and Hearth and how people became separated from God. Adam and Eve are not literal, but instead are representative of each and every one of us. They disobey God and are separated from Him. We disobey God and are separated from Him. They are us.

(BTW, I think Cain is representative of Babylonia and Abel represents Israel.)

You should ask your friend how, if the logic is impeccable, how is it that so many Christians and Christian denominations accept evolution. Your friend has to throw out of Christianity Catholics, Methodists, most Presbyterian denominations, Congregationalists, Anglicans, and most Lutheran synods. That doesn't make sense.

Moaty · #5 16th August 2007, 03:55 AM

Every word in the Bible from the first page of Genesis to the last page of Revelation is God's word, meaning it's all true. Therefore to deny anything that is written in the bible, is to deny the truth.
One can't look at the bible and agree with some parts and then disagree with other parts, and still claim that it's God's Word. The Bible is either all true or none of it's true.

Madcoil · #6 16th August 2007, 05:28 AM

But is it either ALL fact or NO facts at all?

LeeC · #7 24th August 2007, 07:18 AM

Many Christians believe in evolution...

Just check out Francis Collins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins

Wiccan_Child · #8 29th August 2007, 01:36 PM

Originally Posted by sliderman69

Hello and welcome all this is my first time to this forum and its great to see it full of interested intelligent people! Im not sure if this is the right place to post here but my friend recently told me that it is impossible to believe in both evolution and believe in christianity.

His logic went (something) like this:
+ Believing in evolution means you don't belive in adam+eve
+ This leads to there being no original sin
+ This leads to the reason Jesus being on earth and dying null and void

As far as I can tell, two of these steps are flawed:

Strictly speaking, evolution is not at odds with even the most fundamental of fundamentalists: it is an observed biological phenomenon. However, the standard model of how the Earth got it's current biodiversity does contradict 6-day, 6,000-old Earth, beliefs.
But the phenomenon of evolution does not belie a belief in Adam & Eve.
The second point is valid: original sin originated from Adam & Eve. If they don't exist, then original sin doesn't exist.
Original sin is not the only sin, nor is the salvation thereof the sole purpose of Jesus.

Hope this helps. Basically: evolution is not at odds with Adam & Eve, and Jesus had other reasons to come to Earth besides dealing with the original sin.

Wiccan_Child · #9 29th August 2007, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by Moaty

Every word in the Bible from the first page of Genesis to the last page of Revelation is God's word, meaning it's all true.

Non sequitur. Fiction, though ultimately false, can still convey truth. It requires metaphor, though, something which the literalists cannot allow.

Originally Posted by Moaty

Therefore to deny anything that is written in the bible, is to deny the truth.

That sounds an awful lot like idolatry.

Originally Posted by Moaty

One can't look at the bible and agree with some parts and then disagree with other parts, and still claim that it's God's Word. The Bible is either all true or none of it's true.

Why? Where does the Bible state that it is inerrant?

avdrummerboy · #10 9th September 2007, 02:34 AM

Evolution is one of those wierd spots on our historical record. It can't be proven, it is dis-proven agiain and again and is still taught as fact in schools, and for some reason people belive it. How does beliving in evolution say that you don't believe in Adam and Eve? Assuming that Adam and Eve were the first humans, which most people accept, then saying that believing in evolution means that you don't believe in them is paradox that disproves evolution in and of itself. If evolution states that we evolved from them over time into who we are today then saying that beliving evolution disproves them brings the whole shaky theory down.

By the way did you know that evolution cannot even be proven to be a theory?