As a Christian, how many of you believe in evolution?

[Speedwell]

In other words, science is based on faith too.

No, it's based on inductive logic. Nothing is believed without evidence.

 

[expos4ever]

In other words, science is based on faith too.

Nonsense.

 

[_____a_____]

LOL You are on a Christian site. Christians take the time to give an honest answer to your questions and you call it garbage and then ask them to reconsider their beliefs to accommodate you. If you don't appreciate their responses then I would think you would just go somewhere else where people will just agree with you. OR you could stay and try to politely explain your position.

Dude... I asked a question and they made a speech about the stupidity of evolution. What did you expect?

 

[pitabread]

Must be contagious.

Avoiding answering questions is an answer in and of themselves.

So far you've claimed that evolution is a hoax, but have avoided answering anything about the nature of who is perpetuating said hoax.

Now, what does that have to do with comparing speculation (in your words: "Proof is for math, not science.) to God's word?

This has to do with understanding of the nature of science (and math, for that matter).

When people start throwing around the word "proof" in the context of science, it usually indicates they don't understand science.

 

[pitabread]

In other words, science is based on faith too.

Only in a very loose definition of the word "faith", which arguably dilutes such definition to the point that it's not meaningful in this context in the first place.

 

[inquiring mind]

When people start throwing around the word "proof" in the context of science, it usually indicates they don't understand science.

Well, according to you it's not proof; according to some other responses it's not faith... so, who's confused here?

 

[DreamerOfTheHeart]

Again, I know of nobody who thinks this.

If anything it's the opposite: the more people understand about modern science, the more we realize we don't know.

The purpose of science is to progress towards a more accurate understanding of our reality. Sometimes that does involve radical new ideas which overturn previously held ideas. The history of scientific advancement will attest to that.

That doesn't mean we think we've already figured out everything, so I have no idea where you are getting that idea from.

I get this idea because I come from a place you are unfamiliar with.

I can only explain it in metaphor: take for instance, if someone travels to America in the early 1950s, in the deep south. Literally using a recent Dr Who plot here. The people there believe they are reasonable, kind, good, open minded people. Yet, they treat people who simply have a different color of skin as inferiors. They do not mind unfairly jailing them, or slapping them in public. Something they would never do to their own kind.

They are not aware of how this will be viewed, even just seventy years in the future.

Another metaphor: two people are traveling in the desert. One of them is from a very foreign land. The other is a local tribesman, very familiar with the desert. He is trying to help this stranded stranger.

The stranded stranger tells the tribesman to stop. Says they have to wait where they are.

The tribesman thinks this is crazy. Foolish. He does not understand.

He wondered why this stranger was talking to himself. He is delirious, the tribesman thinks.

How might the foreigner not be foolish in this circumstance?

He is a downed pilot. He has not been talking to himself. He has a radio piece in his ear, and a microphone on his jacket. It is wired into a satellite communication device. He has been talking to his military base. They have his coordinates. They have told him to sit tight and wait.

Now, to make it more applicable, say that tribesman is somehow from a lost tribe, with no contact with the modern world. They have no idea what a satellite communication device is. They have never seen a plane nor copter before. They do not know what a military base even is.

It is much more difficult to describe to them.

Explanations:

You don't know what Heaven is. You probably think it is a bunch of stories people have told, to make themselves feel safe in the world. It is like Japan. If you have never been there, you don't know what it is like. It is hard to explain.

You have to be sensitive. The person is from another land. A very alien one. If you take care to listen to them, you might start to understand their culture. Their way of viewing the world.

You are used to dealing with people from places you understand. They have familiar beliefs as you do. What you just stated, probably the majority of Christians believe. You may believe you have been triggered, you understand me. You may think what I have stated has some resemblance to what you have heard before. I am a known entity. I am like those. The language sounds similar.

On the surface.

Of course, now you have talked to me a bit more, you probably see this is not the case.

You could get a clue, what Christian who expresses doubt on modern science have you come across might have put as their avatar Jim Morrison?

Are you familiar with Rick & Morty? Probably. If not, Rick is a superscientist. He takes his grandson Morty on a lot of adventures around the universe. Through most of the series, the rest of their planet has no idea, and nothing like the science they have. Why doesn't Rick share his technology with the rest of the world?

Who would keep such things secret?

Anybody who has such technology. That is who.

The track science is on, is fine. Who cares? I can explain things from an evolutionary point of view, or not. Does not matter. It is a band aid. It is primeval.

It will be replaced.

For Christians, this is explained as angels coming from the Kingdom of Heaven. For agnostics and atheists, the metaphoric framework that can be used with them is 'aliens' from 'up there', from another world. And not like even your best science fiction has yet even begun to grasp.

'We come in peace'.

LoL!

You have never seen a "miracle". Magic does not exist. There are no such things as 'beings from another world', whether they are angels, or aliens, or faeries, or whatever people have called them. Even if they were, they would probably be green headed monsters, just come here to eat people. Maybe use them as slaves, or something else -- man would think of from his paranoid imagination.

'Magic is nothing but technology sufficient enough in advancement to not be understood'. Paraphrasing Clarke's statement.

This idea that aliens would travel in spaceships is a metaphor. Communication bridges are hard to establish.

People have to think in their own terms, from things they deal with. Flying ships in modern days. Flaming chariots in old days.

Humans live, at most, 120 years. Usually around 70, depending on locale. Their sense of time is very different from people who live millions of years.

Humans are of flesh and blood. Intrinsically vulnerable in every way.

Even a young man can die just by slipping in the bathroom and breaking his head open. A needle hurts. A wrong break in the skin can severe an artery. They have to [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] and sleep and eat. They need clothes and shelter.

You can imagine humans not made of flesh and blood. Maybe something like rock. You can imagine humans, like us, maybe billions of years ago, having transferred their consciousness somewhere else. Into something else. Maybe they then were able to perfect these bodies. Make them into a substance that is able to be as wind. Learn how to manipulate reality as if it were a dream, or a computer simulation.

Maybe they learned how to travel across space just by doing 'something like' 'just thinking about where they want to go'. As humans might do in their dreams.

Maybe the original universe was not even this one. Maybe there was a place where 'something like' a vast array of computers were made. Maybe this would be equivalent to our year 30,000. Maybe it took them a million years. Maybe a billion.

Maybe they transferred their consciousness into these computers and created virtual worlds. Maybe they created universes. Maybe they created people, not unlike their own ancestors, who originally invented computers and robots on some of these worlds. Maybe, because of their sense of time, they were happy to hang around, all along. Hide and watch. Manage things 'from the shadows'.

Maybe there is something to the weak flesh which was important. Something called 'trust'. Something called 'love'. Something which was required for them to eventually move to better bodies. Like their own.


All of which is fine and good, but 'prove it'. Show, don't tell. Where is the evidence.

Why talk about such things, without evidence.

If you talk about your house, your job, your family, your background, maybe I might call you a liar. If it is probable, ordinary, probably not, right? If you claim to be a Navy Seal, a spy, a billionaire? That is improbable. Prove it.

That is the problem with probability, isn't it? Fifty fifty chance of a quarter landing heads, does not mean that quarter might not land tails fifty times in a row.

One in a billion chance to win a massive lottery does not mean much if you buy one ticket, first time in your life, and win it.


The reason I write this is not because 'evidence won't be forthcoming'. You can expect the world to change. Animals in the wild know when a storm is coming. Humans know that there is a possibility of some massive change happening, from someplace they do not know.

Even if there were not, you can extrapolate how modern science would appear to humans in fifty, hundred, thousand, hundred thousand years, and so on.

 

[_____a_____]

Well, according to you it's not proof; according to some other responses it's not faith... so, who's confused here?

Science is about explaining observations. That means there are infinite explanations for everything we know about the universe, however, science attempts to come up with the most reasonable explanation. So saying science "proves" something is wrong. However, it is generally the best explanation. Explanations change, as can be seen with the belief in the flat earth to a globe model. These explanations also work giving them much more credibility, as seen with the fact that you can even type and send messages on the internet.

 

[inquiring mind]

That means there are infinite explanations for everything we know about the universe, however, science attempts to come up with the most reasonable explanation.

Except of course that we were created by God. When they consider that... we can talk reasonable.

 

[Speedwell]

Except of course that we were created by God. When they consider that... we can talk reasonable.

It is irrelevant to the discussion. Whether God exists or not, whether God is author of our being or not, the science will be the same.

Well, according to you it's not proof; according to some other responses it's not faith... so, who's confused here?

You, because those are not the only two possibilities.

 

[inquiring mind]

It is irrelevant to the discussion. Whether God exists or not, whether God is author of our being or not, the science will be the same.

You, because those are not the only two possibilities.

Yes, now I'm confused.

 

[pitabread]

Well, according to you it's not proof; according to some other responses it's not faith... so, who's confused here?

Taking about proof and faith sounds like talking about two extremes. But there are a whole bunch of possibilities in between those two extremes.

Science is about trying to understand the natural world. We observe specific phenomena and come up with explanations for those phenomena. Then those explanations are tested, revised, and tested some more, to try to get as accurate an understanding as possible.

Those explanations will never be 100% perfect. The only 100% representation of reality is reality itself.

This is why explanations in science are never considered "proven". Rather they are considered supported by evidence and testing. And the process of gathering evidence and testing is continuously ongoing, as explanations continue to become progressively more robust and accurate (but still never 100% proven).

 

[pitabread]

I get this idea because I come from a place you are unfamiliar with.

<snip>

Yeah, TLDR.

 

[Colter]

That life evolved is revealed in the fossil record. But the fossil record does not reveal the origin of life or the forces of creation behind the evolution of mind. So there is a basis of truth behind both the evolution of life and the creation of evolution.

 

[Astrophile]

Anyone who looks close enough to see whether there is evidence or not.


It's 'what' determines valid scientists... proof, not speculation.

What would you accept as evidence for evolution or proof of evolution?

 

[inquiring mind]

What would you accept as evidence for evolution or proof of evolution?

If you're speaking of macro evolution there will never be any proof of it; it would contradict God's word, and that's not going to happen.

 

[_____a_____]

If you're speaking of macro evolution there will never be any proof of it; it would contradict God's word, and that's not going to happen.

Are you saying it is impossible for anything to contradict gods word? If so, then you must be a flat earther as the bible describes a flat earth.

 

[Tanj]

Evolution is a myth that robs from the glory and creativity of God .
Evolution is a figment.

Such an odd argument. On the one hand you have a survivor of 4 billion years of tooth-and-claw struggle for survival, on the other a sad little powder puff God put on top of the pile.

It's the latter that robs from the glory and creativity, not the former.

Who do you admire more: the guy that starts out in the mail room and through dint of effort and skill rises to CEO, or the business owner's son being made CEO just because.

 

[DreamerOfTheHeart]

Yeah, TLDR.

In a smaller chunk: Science today should not be thought of as the final mile. It will be considered primitive in the near future. It is a band-aid.

The universe is a far bigger place then just 'planet earth'.

Just because you believe yourself to be open minded, does not mean you actually are.

Dealing with what is already known, is easy. Dealing with the unknown, not so much.

What I have heard from you is you know a small part of what is known. But, have significant problems dealing with the unknown. Yet, you do not see your self this way. That does not mean your view of your self is correct.

Try and judge your self, by your own accomplishments, or lack thereof. Don't claim credit for other people's accomplishments. Which pundits of both science or religion tend to do.

 

[USincognito]

If we define evolution as changes in life forms over time, yes, I believe in evolution.

How about we define it as scientists actually define it?