Can you be Christian and believe in evolution?

[SavedByGrace3]

Before I was saved, I believed in Darwinian Evolution... mainly because it seemed to make sense, and the subject was not important enough to me to take the time to refute.
After I got saved, I refuted Darwinian Evolution... mainly because most of my Christian friends and teachers were against it.
After a couple of decades of being saved, I came to believe in Theistic Evolution because I see it in scripture and nature, and it makes sense when coupled with God's involvement.
I refute Darwinian Evolution as untenable. Chance and random mutations are insufficient to explain life's progression from single cells to humans.

 

[Qubit]

...the big bang wasn't discovered until the 1900s.

The theory came from Kabballah...

"And it is interesting to note that both modern science and Kabbalah’s teachings about the steps of creation from thousands of years ago are similar."

Kabbalistic Glossary: The Big Bang, or the Story of Creation

Modern science tells us that before the universe existed, around 15 billion years ago, there was nothing, and that the universe began in a single poin...

www.kabbalah.com

Ironically, it is a religious belief.

 

[Qubit]

Also, Moses lived 3,000 years ago. He didn't know about the big bang. If he did, he could have simply said "In the Beginning, there was a big bang".

I see you avoided my questions...

Can you be Christian and believe in evolution?

The Word can be alive without needing to suit it to my modern day ideas. I can still understand the psalmist, describing the Lords love for us, knitting is together in the womb, there with us from the very beginning before we are even born. Etc. I can understand this without the text needing to...

www.christianforums.com

I believe the information came from God and was passed to the authors per Scripture...

2 Peter 1:21
"For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

Who cares if Moses or anyone else did not fully understand what they were writing? That has nothing to do with Salvation.

The Bible message is meant for all generations, existing in any time period. That is why there is so much symbolism. The symbolism is necessary to define the meaning of words because words change over time.

Ezekiel may not have understood that he was being given a vision of Quantum Mechanics and Particle Physics, but the symbolism is clear to us now...

Both Jews and Gentiles to this day are still blind to the fact that the Tabernacles and Temples are scale models of Eukaryotic Cells...

If the Church would stop being so proud and arrogant, and admit when they are wrong, and update their info, we would be light years ahead in our understanding of what Salvation actually means. Science and Scripture interpretation would agree.

God was teaching something extremely profound, but folks are too busy being 'knowitalls' and bullies and thus, they prevent any kind of real progress being made. Truth is banned. Christianity remains in the Dark Ages still to this very day.

 

[The Barbarian]

Before I was saved, I believed in Darwinian Evolution... mainly because it seemed to make sense, and the subject was not important enough to me to take the time to refute.

We observe it happening in populations all around us. Reality kicks anyone's rationalizing.

After I got saved, I refuted Darwinian Evolution... mainly because most of my Christian friends and teachers were against it.
After a couple of decades of being saved, I came to believe in Theistic Evolution because I see it in scripture and nature, and it makes sense when coupled with God's involvement.

The good thing is, natural phenomena go on, regardless of how we feel about it.

I refute Darwinian Evolution as untenable. Chance and random mutations are insufficient to explain life's progression from single cells to humans.

Darwin's great discovery was that it isn't by chance. The four points of Darwinian theory:
1. More are born than can live.
2. Every organism is slightly different than its parents.
3. The useful differences tend to increase likelihood of survival and the harmful ones tend to decrease chances of survival.
4. The changes increase over time and this explains new species.

Which of these has been refuted?

I wonder if you've considered the thoughts of some IDers who believe that the "designer" (who many of them think is God) front-loaded creation to make all this happen. It might be a sensible way to reconcile things for you. Worth a look? Nature's Destiny, by Michael Denton might be useful. I certainly don't agree with all of his ideas, but he might have something right about the "front-loading" idea.

 

[The Barbarian]

When a population changes genetically that is, by definition, evolution. Even if it's by "genetic tinkering." Selective breeding and natural selection are "genetic tinkering."

So, the Theory of Evolution includes genetic engineering by past civilizations

Such as the breeding of livestock and crop plants? Of course. Remember, evolution is a change in allele frequencies in a population.

Or is it just Eugenics?

Eugenics (one principle of which was denounced by Darwin as an "overwhelming evil" and debunked by Darwinists like Punnett, is the weird idea that we can apply breeding techniques to humans without Draconian limitations of freedom.

Or is Eugenics even considered?

After the discoveries of Morgan and Punnett, no one with any understanding of biology took it seriously.

 

[Qubit]

That over 3,000 years, it wasn't until this generation, or that of our immediate parents, that the true meaning of Genesis 1:1 was finally unlocked?

The ancients did a fantastic job of understanding Genesis 1:1...

The image above is extremely accurate when compared to the most advanced theories out there (M-Theory, String Theory, etc.)

Again, people are too busy being arrogant and full of themselves to see it. It goes right over their heads. They think God was 'an idiot' when he gave the info to the Scribes.

God gets the last laugh.

Psalms 2:4
"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision."

 

[Qubit]

Such as the breeding of livestock and crop plants?

Yes.

If the Evolutionists found evidence of the Giant grapes mentioned here...

Numbers 13:23
"And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs."

What would they conclude? Would they conclude that the grapes evolved naturally over time, even though they did not? Would they come up with some hairbrained 'missing link' to make their theory work? I bet they would.

What if the grapes were produced in a laboratory? Would the Evolutionists ever admit to that? I highly doubt it. Their entire fragile house of cards would come tumbling down. Too much is at stake for them to admit they were wrong.

Genesis teaches that *all* flesh was corrupt. That means *everything* was, and is, genetically altered. Do you really believe that the Evolutionists would agree? Heck, even Christians have trouble believing it.

The Theory of Evolution would then have to be thrown into the garbage.

Thus, either the Bible is correct, or Evolutionists, but not both unless the Evolutionists admit that all life has been corrupted and guided since the beginning by beings far more advanced than we are.

 

[Fervent]

Not for a Christian.

To non-scientists, science seems to often be mysterious and difficult. Plumbing not so much. Laymen seem to get methodological naturalism much easier when it's plumbing. Far as I know, I first used that example to explain to non-scientists.

Nevertheless, plumbing and science are possible and commonly done. A plumber might be a theist, but that doesn't affect the way he does plumbing. It might affect how he deals with customers, but not how he deals with pipes.


Guess how I know you don't read a lot of biological literature.

Those don't seem like valid excuses, since all of those men remain important in modern science. You could add Francis Collins, Theo Dobzhansky, and many others. And no deist could be a materialist, since she would believe in a transcendant Creator.


Francis Collins is an evangelical Christian. Director of the Human Genome Project. And head of the NIH. You merely made a bad assumption here.


Believers in God (whatever they think of God) seem to be a group set apart from those who don't believe in God. I don't think you've thought about this very deeply.


Francis Collins. And many, many others. The man who taught me about evolution was a member of the vestry of his church. C'mon.

It's a limitation of science. It can only work with the physical universe. The supernatural is beyond it's reach.


It's just the way science works. We can only work with physical phenomena. Things measurable and repeatable. There have been attempts by people to measure the soul by weighing beds just before and after a patient expires. Complete failure.


If science were to say "that's all there is; there is nothing beyond the reach of our ability to sense it." But of course, that's the difference between ontological materialism, and the methodological materialism of science. Even Richard Dawkins ultimately admits that his is only a methodological materialism; he realizes there may be a God beyond his perceptions.


It always seemed to work fine when I did it. Never saw anyone else have a problem with it. Maybe actually doing science makes it easier to understand.


We called them fundy atheists. And they exist. But they are just as wrong as their religious counterparts. Notice, Dawkins isn't one of them. In fact, he admits that there could be a God out there. He thinks that such a God would be a pretty unpleasant fellow, but still...

It's clear at this point we're not going to get anywhere in this discussion, so I wish you the best and God bless.

 

[The Barbarian]

It's clear at this point we're not going to get anywhere in this discussion,

Actually, I think we've made a lot of progress. And people watching surely got something from this. While we disagree on things, it's good to see someone with some understanding of the philosophical issues.

so I wish you the best and God bless.

You too.

 

[Job 33:6]

The ancients did a fantastic job of understanding Genesis 1:1...

View attachment 343812​

The image above is extremely accurate when compared to the most advanced theories out there (M-Theory, String Theory, etc.)

Again, people are too busy being arrogant and full of themselves to see it. It goes right over their heads. They think God was 'an idiot' when he gave the info to the Scribes.

God gets the last laugh.

Psalms 2:4
"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision."

Are you a flat earther? That doesn't look accurate to me.

 

[Job 33:6]

I see you avoided my questions...

Can you be Christian and believe in evolution?

The Word can be alive without needing to suit it to my modern day ideas. I can still understand the psalmist, describing the Lords love for us, knitting is together in the womb, there with us from the very beginning before we are even born. Etc. I can understand this without the text needing to...

www.christianforums.com

I believe the information came from God and was passed to the authors per Scripture...

2 Peter 1:21
"For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

Who cares if Moses or anyone else did not fully understand what they were writing? That has nothing to do with Salvation.

The Bible message is meant for all generations, existing in any time period. That is why there is so much symbolism. The symbolism is necessary to define the meaning of words because words change over time.

Ezekiel may not have understood that he was being given a vision of Quantum Mechanics and Particle Physics, but the symbolism is clear to us now...

View attachment 343809​

Both Jews and Gentiles to this day are still blind to the fact that the Tabernacles and Temples are scale models of Eukaryotic Cells...

View attachment 343810 View attachment 343811​

If the Church would stop being so proud and arrogant, and admit when they are wrong, and update their info, we would be light years ahead in our understanding of what Salvation actually means. Science and Scripture interpretation would agree.

God was teaching something extremely profound, but folks are too busy being 'knowitalls' and bullies and thus, they prevent any kind of real progress being made. Truth is banned. Christianity remains in the Dark Ages still to this very day.

So the wheels with eyeballs all around in the book of Ezekiel are actually atoms?

I'm amazed that someone would actually spend time developing this kind of rubbish haha.

 

[The Barbarian]

If the Evolutionists found evidence of the Giant grapes mentioned here...

Numbers 13:23
"And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs."

What would they conclude? Would they conclude that the grapes evolved naturally over time, even though they did not? Would they come up with some hairbrained 'missing link' to make their theory work? I bet they would.

Given that we got large grapes today by just such a process, they'd be correct to say they evolved by artificial selection. We still have wild grapes, and there are transitional forms from wild to today's highly-evolved forms.

Ann Bot. 2010 Mar; 105(3): 443–455.

Evolution and history of grapevine (Vitis vinifera) under domestication: new morphometric perspectives to understand seed domestication syndrome and reveal origins of ancient European cultivars​

That means *everything* was, and is, genetically altered

Constantly, in all populations. That's what evolution is.

The Theory of Evolution would then have to be thrown into the garbage.

You just provided more evidence for the observed phenomenon of evolution. Thus either the Bible is correct or creationists are correct,but not both.

God created nature to give us these results. You need to have more faith in God and less faith in man's revisions of God and His word.

 

[Qubit]

Thanks @Job 33:6 for proving my point.

 

[Qubit]

Given that we got large grapes today by just such a process...

Where can I get some of these...

 

[Job 33:6]

Thanks @Job 33:6 for proving my point.

Are you a flat earther?

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Too bad you can not get that to stand up in a court of law. People have opinions with no evidence to back them up.

The Biblical account of the Creation comes from an eye witness account of someone who was actually there. We either believe Him or we don't. It's about as simple as that.

 

[Job 33:6]

The Biblical account of the Creation comes from an eye witness account of someone who was actually there. We either believe Him or we don't. It's about as simple as that.

The Bible never says that it was an eyewitness account.

In reality, it's polemic and is written through the phenomenological perspective of ancient near east peoples.

 

[BeyondET]

Where can I get some of these...

View attachment 343832

About a 100$ a bunch, expensive. Japanese giants that's an egg with it lol.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

The Bible never says that it was an eyewitness account.

In reality, it's polemic and is written through the phenomenological perspective of ancient near east peoples.

What do you make of this?

"Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?
(Job 38:4-7).

So, because God told Job that He laid the earth's foundation, then He was there. Was God mistaken or lying when He said that to Job?

 

[BeyondET]

What do you make of this?

"Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?
(Job 38:4-7).

So, because God told Job that He laid the earth's foundation, then He was there. Was God mistaken or lying when He said that to Job?

So evening and morning in Genesis 1 is definitely an unknown day length. Should we even consider it being a measurement?