Evolution is Not Atheistic

[Open Heart]

Most Christians accept Evolution. Notice I say accept rather than believe. That is because unlike religion, where we take things on faith and then look for evidence, Evolution starts with evidence and then reaches conclusions.

I am a Christian and I accept Punctuated Evolution, complete with genetic drift. Now I am a theistic evolutionist, which means that I have a hard time believing that Survival of the Species ALONE is enough to explain evolution. I think that evolution may be drivin by God. (This is not the same thing as intelligent design, which assumes that whole species appear intact.) However, this belief is red flagged because I MAY BE WRONG. The truth is that evolution may be completely NATURAL. But who is the author of the natural world and its laws? God! So even if Natural Selection and Genetic drift turn out to be the sufficient explanation for evolution, it doesn't rule out a Creator.

Evolution only explain life once it got here, and how it developed into the myriad of species that we see today. Evolution does NOT explain how life came from nonlife. We know you can get amino acids and peptides naturally, but there is a chasm between this and a living cell with DNA. It cannot be replicated in the lab, nor do we have any model for it. Science is completely clueless how it happened. A person is as free to speculate the God did it as they are to speculate that it happened as a result of as much an infinite set of accidents as random waves on the beach could produce "Amy loves Joe" in the sand. The point is one can believe in evolution yet still believe that God created life.

All this to say that there are MANY ways to believe in God yet also believe in evolution.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Fully agree with your premise that evolution and belief in deities are not mutually exclusive. I do wish to add that deity involvement is not mentioned in such theories not because they are being excluded, but that their involvement is impossible to determine or measure.

 

[Open Heart]

Fully agree with your premise that evolution and belief in deities are not mutually exclusive. I do wish to add that deity involvement is not mentioned in such theories not because they are being excluded, but that their involvement is impossible to determine or measure.

Right. Evolution is like drinking coffee. God is not relevant to it. You can go either direction personally and still accept it.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Right. Evolution is like drinking coffee. God is not relevant to it. You can go either direction personally and still accept it.

Absolutely, although one cannot think the Earth is 10,000 years old and agree with evolution, the theory doesn't work with such little time.

 

[Open Heart]

Absolutely, although one cannot think the Earth is 10,000 years old and agree with evolution, the theory doesn't work with such little time.

LOL, you're right. That's completely contradictory. And irrational. Folks that believe the earth is 10,000 years old or less simply dismiss the evidence (unless they are really that ignorant).

 

[Loudmouth]

Most Christians accept Evolution. Notice I say accept rather than believe. That is because unlike religion, where we take things on faith and then look for evidence, Evolution starts with evidence and then reaches conclusions.

I am a Christian and I accept Punctuated Evolution, complete with genetic drift. Now I am a theistic evolutionist, which means that I have a hard time believing that Survival of the Species ALONE is enough to explain evolution. I think that evolution may be drivin by God. (This is not the same thing as intelligent design, which assumes that whole species appear intact.) However, this belief is red flagged because I MAY BE WRONG. The truth is that evolution may be completely NATURAL. But who is the author of the natural world and its laws? God! So even if Natural Selection and Genetic drift turn out to be the sufficient explanation for evolution, it doesn't rule out a Creator.

Evolution only explain life once it got here, and how it developed into the myriad of species that we see today. Evolution does NOT explain how life came from nonlife. We know you can get amino acids and peptides naturally, but there is a chasm between this and a living cell with DNA. It cannot be replicated in the lab, nor do we have any model for it. Science is completely clueless how it happened. A person is as free to speculate the God did it as they are to speculate that it happened as a result of as much an infinite set of accidents as random waves on the beach could produce "Amy loves Joe" in the sand. The point is one can believe in evolution yet still believe that God created life.

All this to say that there are MANY ways to believe in God yet also believe in evolution.

You may enjoy this quote from Charles Darwin.

It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. It has recently been objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging of the common events of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers ... I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, "as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion." A celebrated author and divine has written to me that "he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws."

— Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859)​

 

[Butterfly99]

Most Christians accept Evolution. Notice I say accept rather than believe. That is because unlike religion, where we take things on faith and then look for evidence, Evolution starts with evidence and then reaches conclusions.

I am a Christian and I accept Punctuated Evolution, complete with genetic drift. Now I am a theistic evolutionist, which means that I have a hard time believing that Survival of the Species ALONE is enough to explain evolution. I think that evolution may be drivin by God. (This is not the same thing as intelligent design, which assumes that whole species appear intact.) However, this belief is red flagged because I MAY BE WRONG. The truth is that evolution may be completely NATURAL. But who is the author of the natural world and its laws? God! So even if Natural Selection and Genetic drift turn out to be the sufficient explanation for evolution, it doesn't rule out a Creator.

Evolution only explain life once it got here, and how it developed into the myriad of species that we see today. Evolution does NOT explain how life came from nonlife. We know you can get amino acids and peptides naturally, but there is a chasm between this and a living cell with DNA. It cannot be replicated in the lab, nor do we have any model for it. Science is completely clueless how it happened. A person is as free to speculate the God did it as they are to speculate that it happened as a result of as much an infinite set of accidents as random waves on the beach could produce "Amy loves Joe" in the sand. The point is one can believe in evolution yet still believe that God created life.

All this to say that there are MANY ways to believe in God yet also believe in evolution.

Yeah for real I was confused by the atheistic evolution & theistic evolution choices on here. Confused by this whole debate thing cause I didn't think there was a debate. Learned on here that folks debate about all kinds of stuff I never knew were still debatable b4.

 

[Open Heart]

You may enjoy this quote from Charles Darwin.

It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. It has recently been objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging of the common events of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers ... I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, "as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion." A celebrated author and divine has written to me that "he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws."

— Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859)​

fabulous quote!

 

[True Science]

[deleted]

 

[Strathos]

Pagans have nothing to do with it. The ToE is a framework that explains observations in nature.

 

[True Science]

[deleted]

 

[Strathos]

Atheists have existed throughout history.

 

[True Science]

[deleted]

 

[Strathos]

I guess that is true. It seems like though it has never been so popular as it is now in modern times though. Though it is still a minority. Maybe I'm wrong though.

More like more people are able to express their views today due to our improved communications technology such as the internet.

 

[True Science]

[deleted]

 

[Open Heart]

Let's not idolize pagans. The Greek philosophers had all sorts of bizarre notions of how life began, none of which were based on scientific thinking.

 

[True Science]

[deleted]

 

[ecco]

Evolution does NOT explain how life came from nonlife. We know you can get amino acids and peptides naturally, but there is a chasm between this and a living cell with DNA. It cannot be replicated in the lab, nor do we have any model for it. Science is completely clueless how it happened.

Five hundred years ago, mankind was completely clueless about the concepts of evolution.
Five hundred years ago, mankind was completely clueless about the nature of the atom.
Five hundred years ago, mankind was completely clueless about the size of the universe.

The path from amino acids and peptides to a living cell with DNA is currently unknown.

All this to say that there are MANY ways to believe in God yet also believe in evolution.

Many christians in this forum, and elsewhere, will disagree with you.


Nevertheless, congratulations on your enlightened views and the courage to state them.

 

[True Science]

[deleted]

 

[SteveB28]

From my study of what the Bible truly teaches though, I have to say that if the theory of evolution is true, then at least the Bible is wrong and false. Now this does not necessarily rule out an all-able and all-knowing creator. But it would then seem that the God of the Bible is not that creator since he is wrong about his own creation. Unless somehow the Bible was changed in those parts, which seems highly unlikely to me. I though, do not see how this theory can be true. It doesn't make enough sense from my research. I'll leave it at that for now.

Only if you confine yourself to a narrow interpretation.