Can you be Christian and believe in evolution?

[olgamc]

First time using multiquote here. I agree with you Olgamc, as there are many Christians who believe in micro-evolution such as myself (old-Earth Creationist here). It is impossible for an ape to evolve into a human, and even our fossil records show there is a gap between humans and apes. That gap has not been closed. Same with the Precambrian explosion. Those must be God's work right there.

Yes, I tend to think along the same lines. However I do think that macro evolution is possible in cases where God decides to make it possible, or where our understanding is limited. For example, are apple and pear different kinds of fruit trees? Most people, I think, would intuitively say yes. But they can be crossed. Which means that they are a different variety of the same kind. So they used to be one kind, and now they are two kinds. Well that’s either macro evolution, or we don’t understand what constitutes a kind.

Also I am curious, how do you, personally, reconcile a geologically old earth with the 6 day biblical account?

 

[tonychanyt]

If you mean that information sprang into existence by itself, for itself, yet without any perception of self as an intelligent being, I would decidedly say false.

Right. Do you know of anyone who believes that P1 is true?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Depends on how you define Christian and evolution. Can you be an alcoholic and saved? Yes. Can you be a practicing alcoholic and still be saved? Yes - because we are being made perfect, but we are not perfect yet, and we still sin repeatedly. Can you be a practicing unrepentant alcoholic and seeing absolutely no problems with substance abuse and damage produced by your behaviour when you are drunk, and claim that you have the Spirit? Maybe, because maybe the Lord has already brought you to a saving faith but not yet revealed that you need to work on this area of your life. Can you be a Bible believing born-again follower of Christ, and at the same time think that substance abuse and the resulting behaviour is not sin? No. Because that goes against Ephesians 5:18.

In other words, you can be a Bible believing Christian and believe in aspects of evolution that do not violate the scripture. Creationists do believe in micro-evolution, though not everybody. So I think a better question is, can you believe that you descended from an ape and that Adam is not one man, and at the same time believe and accept the message of salvation in Romans 5:12-19?

Yes, you can believe. I do.

Admittedly, though, doing so requires more than simply reading and accepting the Bible at face value. And if my fellow Christians don't feel up to doing that sort of research and reading, then................just stick with the Bible. You've got Jesus either way!

And P.S. -- Welcome to CF!

 

[tonychanyt]

If a person believes in the theory of evolution, it means that they have put their faith in Charles Darwin

Are you familiar with First-Order Logic?

 

[tonychanyt]

Please don't go all technical on me, I only took an intro course in AI and I am only using this as an example because you do AI, tonychanyt. Also please correct me if I am wrong.

You are mostly right, technically Strictly speaking, information is passive. Something else, some acting agent (AI, man) needs to process information to produce more information.

 

[Dan1988]

Are you familiar with First-Order Logic?

I don't believe in anything that contradicts the truth, so I'm not interested human philosophy or outrageous theories. I know the truth so I don't need to go down first order rabbit holes

 

[tonychanyt]

Then the thread dies. Other threads go on for 30+ pages, while your threads die out at 5-15 pages.

I put more weight on thread topic relevance than on its length.

 

[tonychanyt]

I don't believe in anything that contradicts the truth. I don't believe in anything that contradicts the truth, so I'm not interested human philosophy or outrageous theories. I know the truth so I don't need to go down first order rabbit holes

First-Order Logic is language. By "contradicts", do you mean it in the First-Order Logical sense?

 

[olgamc]

Right. Do you know of anyone who believes that P1 is true?

Yes. Darwin, and by extension, everyone who believes that all life evolved from an amino acid without divine intervention.

 

[tonychanyt]

Yes. Darwin, and by extension, everyone who believes that all life evolved from an amino acid without divine intervention.

That's not P1. You need to stick to the proposition's precision.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I don't believe in anything that contradicts the truth, so I'm not interested human philosophy or outrageous theories. I know the truth so I don't need to go down first order rabbit holes

The problem here is that some aspects of "the truth" you're supposedly referring to are disagreed with by many Christians in such a way that they have many different interpretations about those aspects. This diversity of interpretation implies that any one of us may be wrong on some points even when we feel confident about our beliefs.

 

[olgamc]

You are mostly right, technically Strictly speaking, information is passive. Something else, some acting agent (AI, man) needs to process information to produce more information.

To produce more information, or to distill information to make it usable? You see the difference, right?

 

[olgamc]

I don't believe in anything that contradicts the truth, so I'm not interested human philosophy or outrageous theories. I know the truth so I don't need to go down first order rabbit holes

What truth do we know though? We know THAT God created fish. Do we know HOW God created fish?

 

[AlexB23]

Yes, I tend to think along the same lines. However I do think that macro evolution is possible in cases where God decides to make it possible, or where our understanding is limited. For example, are apple and pear different kinds of fruit trees? Most people, I think, would intuitively say yes. But they can be crossed. Which means that they are a different variety of the same kind. So they used to be one kind, and now they are two kinds. Well that’s either macro evolution, or we don’t understand what constitutes a kind.

Also I am curious, how do you, personally, reconcile a geologically old earth with the 6 day biblical account?

Well, each day is just an eon or phase of time. These 6 periods of time add up to billions of years.

 

[olgamc]

Well, each day is just an eon or phase of time. These 6 periods of time add up to billions of years.

Yes, I agree that the word day (yom) is used in other places to mean “age” or “epoch” or “period of time”. And it also says that to God one day is like a 1000 years, and a thousand years is like a day. So when God says to Moses, oh yeah, on day 1 I did this - who knows what period of time that actually took? But it also specifically says that there was evening and morning. So, at least after creation of the sun, does that mean that it refers to a 24 hour period? Or not necessarily? I am still trying to work that out, so curious what you think and why.

 

[AlexB23]

Yes, I agree that the word day (yom) is used in other places to mean “age” or “epoch” or “period of time”. And it also says that to God one day is like a 1000 years, and a thousand years is like a day. So when God says to Moses, oh yeah, on day 1 I did this - who knows what period of time that actually took? But it also specifically says that there was evening and morning. So, at least after creation of the sun, does that mean that it refers to a 24 hour period? Or not necessarily? I am still trying to work that out, so curious what you think and why.

Well, for day 1, light was produced. Scientists have detected this light from the creation of the universe as the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is on my profile banner. Also, God says 1 day is like a 1000 years. "Like" is a simile, meaning 1 day for God is an extremely long period of time for humans, infinite in fact. That means God is not bound to time. Evening and morning is used as a transition, showing that the next phase has begun. We must not take Genesis literally, but more symbolically.

 

[tonychanyt]

To produce more information, or to distill information to make it usable? You see the difference, right?

Either way is fine in this context. This distinction is not as important here as the agency which is the key difference.

In computer science, information is often technically defined as a data structure. Different data structures mean different pieces of information, usable or not. Using information implies agency which could be a human or machine.

 

[olgamc]

Either way is fine in this context. This distinction is not as important here as the agency which is the key difference.

In computer science, information is often technically defined as a data structure. Different data structures mean different pieces of information, usable or not. Using information implies agency which could be a human or machine.

Yes, but for the purpose of staying on topic. We are not talking about software engineering, though we both are software engineers. We are talking about evolution. Darwin observed common traits among species and theorized that things began with simple and progressed towards more complicated. In other words, he believed that information was added to an organism by itself. In other words, information that was already in the organism was enough to generate a mutation that added or created more information. Your p1. Right? Or do I misunderstand your p1? I argue that that is impossible by definition. So while I do agree with Darwin's observations, as well as the Biblical account of creation moving from simple to complex, I do not agree with his deduction that it could have just happened by itself. I believe that the additional information needed to be added into the system by someone who possessed that information - God.

But distilling information is the opposite. Distilling is like inbreeding, it's reducing noise, or reducing unwanted or unbeneficial information. Which is also a part of evolutionary process, and which can and does happen without God's direct involvement. E.g. breeds of dogs.

So it is very important to define exactly what we mean by evolution. Do we agree with Darwin that the world was created from simple to more complex? Do we agree that some mutations are beneficial and result in better survival? Those are all aspects of Darwin's theory, and none of those violate the Bible, and so in that regard we can believe in aspects of evolution and still be Christian. But at the same time, by our current dictionary definition of "information", Darwin was also wrong to deduce that a progression from simple to complex could have happened by itself. So Darwin was both right and wrong. But what people do is they say "well a human did not descend from an ape, so to believe in Darwin's theory is to deny Christ". Ok. But we are throwing away all kinds of useful information that we could have had without denying Christ. And we are creating enemies out of scientists, where scientists should be our friends because by understanding how God's creation is designed to work we can take better care of it, which we are commanded to do.

 

[olgamc]

Well, for day 1, light was produced. Scientists have detected this light from the creation of the universe as the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is on my profile banner. Also, God says 1 day is like a 1000 years. "Like" is a simile, meaning 1 day for God is an extremely long period of time for humans, infinite in fact. That means God is not bound to time. Evening and morning is used as a transition, showing that the next phase has begun. We must not take Genesis literally, but more symbolically.

Which then brings me to the next question. How do we correctly respond to people who insist that it is a literal account, and how do we ourselves decide which part is literal and which is not? Surely some parts are. The genealogies were reiterated so many times, that it is reasonable to think that Adam and Eve were literal people and not just an idea or a representation of humankind.

 

[tonychanyt]

Darwin observed common traits among species and theorized that things began with simple and progressed towards more complicated. In other words, he believed that information was added to an organism by itself.

Did Darwin distinguish between the term genetic information from the term organism? Do you?