Christianity and Evolution

[Sky]

Do you think Christianity and Evolution are at odds? Why can't both be true? Why can't evolution fit what the Bible says (or can it)? Debate this.

 

[Sky]

I think evolution does fit with The Bible as long as you don't hold to a literal six-day Creation account. I believe God created life through evolution.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Hundreds of millions of christians around the world agree with you.

 

[seebs]

I think the big central question is whether, and how, humans were "specially" created. The creation story makes us separate from the animals; evolution appears to make us not separate from them.

I think it's sort of a silly conflict; I think God created us as we are now by giving souls and free will to some bipedal apes that were ready for it.

 

[Sky]

So you think Adam was an ape?

 

[FordPrefect]

seebs - ready for it? I would disagree, look at the last 4000 years of religous history. Very few of the sentient primates that have/do inhabit this planet are ready for it.

 

[Sky]

Apes and other primates are very stupid. That is a fact.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by FordPrefect
seebs - ready for it? I would disagree, look at the last 4000 years of religous history. Very few of the sentient primates that have/do inhabit this planet are ready for it.

Cute.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by Sky
So you think Adam was an ape?

No. I think that one offshoot of the primate family ended up basically human, and that somewhere in there, it became a sufficiently complicated and flexible life form for God to put a soul in it. I would guess that this happened somewhere around the time of the cro-magnons, but I'm totally guessing.

My point is, it doesn't bug me to imagine that, somewhere back there, there were bipedal animals which may have been biologically like us, and even perhaps biologically the same as us, but which didn't yet have souls. (Indeed, this would explain where all the unexplained wives came from during Genesis.) God is welcome to create us however He wants, and I understand that some Jewish scholars feel that the original text lends itself to an interpretation where God creates the soul as a separate thing, at first.

 

[Caffeine Socialism]

Why must we be different from the animals? In fact, we are animals. We aren't different from "the animals", we are them. The very fact of DNA shows how similar we are to all other life on Earth. The idea that God 'guided' evolution is patently unevolutionary. Evolution as a process is not telelogical. That is, it is not directed towards whatever exists today. We as individual species are but the results of mutations that make no difference in what they exactly are.

 

[wb3]

I think to say that God created us through evolution takes the legs right out from under the Bible. It also makes our God look like a wimp. That he is not. Rich Mullins put it best "Our God is an awesome God".

 

[LightBearer]

To say that Man is just another animal is quite an understatement.

The Encyclopædia Britannica states that man’s brain “is endowed with considerably more potential than is realizable in the course of one person’s lifetime.” It also has been stated that the human brain could take any load of learning and memory put on it now, and a billion times that! But why would evolution produce such an excess? “This is, in fact, the only example in existence where a species was provided with an organ that it still has not learned how to use,” admitted one scientist. He then asked: “How can this be reconciled with evolution’s most fundamental thesis: Natural selection proceeds in small steps, each of which must confer on its bearer a minimal, but nonetheless measurable, advantage?” He added that the human brain’s development “remains the most inexplicable aspect of evolution.” Since the evolutionary process would not produce and pass on such excessive never-to-be-used brain capacity, is it not more reasonable to conclude that man, with the capacity for endless learning, was designed to live forever?

Carl Sagan, amazed that the human brain could hold information that “would fill some twenty million volumes,” stated: “The brain is a very big place in a very small space.” And what happens in this small space defies human understanding. For example, imagine what must be going on in the brain of a pianist playing a difficult musical composition, with all fingers flying over the keys. What an astonishing sense of movement his brain must have, to order the fingers to strike the right keys at the right time with the right force to match the notes in his head! And if he hits a wrong note, the brain immediately lets him know about it! All this incredibly complex operation has been programmed into his brain by years of practice. But it is made possible only because musical capability was preprogrammed into the human brain from birth.

No animal brain ever conceived such things, much less is able to do them. Nor does any evolutionary theory provide an explanation. Is it not evident that man’s intellectual qualities mirror those of a Supreme Intellect? This harmonizes with Genesis 1:27, which states: “God proceeded to create the man in his image.” The animals were not created in God’s image. That is why they do not have the capabilities man has. Though animals do amazing things by predetermined, rigid instincts, they are no match at all for humans with their flexibility in thinking and acting and their ability to continually build on previous knowledge.

The human capacity for altruism—unselfish giving—creates another problem for evolution. As one evolutionist noted: “Anything that has evolved by natural selection should be selfish.” And many humans are selfish, of course. But as he later acknowledged: “It is possible that yet another unique quality of man is a capacity for genuine, disinterested, true altruism.” Another scientist added: “Altruism is built into us.” Only in humans is it practiced with an awareness of the cost, or sacrifice, that may be involved.

Just consider: Man originates abstract thinking, consciously sets goals, makes plans to reach them, initiates work to carry them out and finds satisfaction in their accomplishment. Created with an eye for beauty, an ear for music, a flair for art, an urge to learn, an insatiable curiosity, and an imagination that invents and creates—man finds joy and fulfillment in exercising these gifts. He is challenged by problems, and delights in using his mental and physical powers to solve them. A moral sense to determine right and wrong and a conscience to prick him when he strays—these too man has. He finds happiness in giving, and joy in loving and being loved. All such activities enhance his pleasure in living and give purpose and meaning to his life.

A human can contemplate the plants and animals, the grandeur of the mountains and oceans around him, the vastness of the starry heavens above him, and feel his smallness. He is aware of time and eternity, wonders how he got here and where he is going, and gropes to understand what is behind it all. No animal entertains such thoughts. But a human seeks the whys and wherefores of things. All of this results from his being endowed with an awesome brain and his bearing the “image” of the One who made him.

With amazing insight, the ancient psalmist David gave credit to the One who designed the brain and whom he considered to be responsible for the miracle of human birth. He said: “I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, as my soul is very well aware. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was woven in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing.” Psalm 139:14-16.

Truly, it can be said that the fertilized egg in the mother’s womb contains all the parts of the emerging human body “down in writing.” The heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the eyes and ears, the arms and legs, and the awesome brain—these and all the other parts of the body were ‘written down’ in the genetic code of the fertilized egg in the mother’s womb. Contained in this code are internal timetables for the appearance of these parts, each one in its proper order. This fact was recorded in the Bible nearly three thousand years before modern science ever discovered the genetic code!

 

[Reaver]

Originally posted by LightBearer
To say that Man is just another animal is quite an understatement.

The Encyclopædia Britannica states that man’s brain “is endowed with considerably more potential than is realizable in the course of one person’s lifetime.” It also has been stated that the human brain could take any load of learning and memory put on it now, and a billion times that! But why would evolution produce such an excess? “This is, in fact, the only example in existence where a species was provided with an organ that it still has not learned how to use,” admitted one scientist. He then asked: “How can this be reconciled with evolution’s most fundamental thesis: Natural selection proceeds in small steps, each of which must confer on its bearer a minimal, but nonetheless measurable, advantage?” He added that the human brain’s development “remains the most inexplicable aspect of evolution.” Since the evolutionary process would not produce and pass on such excessive never-to-be-used brain capacity, is it not more reasonable to conclude that man, with the capacity for endless learning, was designed to live forever?

Monkeys have Neo Cortex too. That view on evolution is old. The guy who said that needs to study some neurology, perhaps things will make more sense then. I seriously dubt that a real scientist would come to that conclusion, those anonymous scientists often turns out to be self declaired such, like creationist "scientists". The deduction is logically flawed in many ways.

Originally posted by LightBearer

Carl Sagan, amazed that the human brain could hold information that “would fill some twenty million volumes,” stated: “The brain is a very big place in a very small space.” And what happens in this small space defies human understanding. For example, imagine what must be going on in the brain of a pianist playing a difficult musical composition, with all fingers flying over the keys. What an astonishing sense of movement his brain must have, to order the fingers to strike the right keys at the right time with the right force to match the notes in his head! And if he hits a wrong note, the brain immediately lets him know about it! All this incredibly complex operation has been programmed into his brain by years of practice. But it is made possible only because musical capability was preprogrammed into the human brain from birth.

Stating such numbers is a bit insecure, it's not quite like digital memory storage. It is pretty amazing regardless, but attributing it to some god only serves to take the mystery out of our world.

Originally posted by LightBearer

No animal brain ever conceived such things, much less is able to do them. Nor does any evolutionary theory provide an explanation. Is it not evident that man’s intellectual qualities mirror those of a Supreme Intellect? This harmonizes with Genesis 1:27, which states: “God proceeded to create the man in his image.” The animals were not created in God’s image. That is why they do not have the capabilities man has. Though animals do amazing things by predetermined, rigid instincts, they are no match at all for humans with their flexibility in thinking and acting and their ability to continually build on previous knowledge.

Man with his unfailing capacity to believe what he wants to believe? With his logical flaws? His social programming? Lack of objectiveness? I have grown up around lots of dogs. To claim that everything they do is to predetermined, rigid instincts only shows ignorence. The can learn new things, obviously, but they can also act correctly in artificial situations they have never been in before due to previous experience. They can also recieve simple instructions to do things they have never done before. We are superiour mentaly but it wouldn't make sense to put us in some alltogether different catagory than animals, you only do it because you have special interests.

Originally posted by LightBearer

The human capacity for altruism—unselfish giving—creates another problem for evolution. As one evolutionist noted: “Anything that has evolved by natural selection should be selfish.” And many humans are selfish, of course. But as he later acknowledged: “It is possible that yet another unique quality of man is a capacity for genuine, disinterested, true altruism.” Another scientist added: “Altruism is built into us.” Only in humans is it practiced with an awareness of the cost, or sacrifice, that may be involved.

That is also an old, naive view on evolution. Go study monkeys for a quick contradiction.  

Originally posted by LightBearer

Just consider: Man originates abstract thinking, consciously sets goals, makes plans to reach them, initiates work to carry them out and finds satisfaction in their accomplishment. Created with an eye for beauty, an ear for music, a flair for art, an urge to learn, an insatiable curiosity, and an imagination that invents and creates—man finds joy and fulfillment in exercising these gifts. He is challenged by problems, and delights in using his mental and physical powers to solve them. A moral sense to determine right and wrong and a conscience to prick him when he strays—these too man has. He finds happiness in giving, and joy in loving and being loved. All such activities enhance his pleasure in living and give purpose and meaning to his life.

It is almost incredible... But you forget to mention the darker sides that is there just as well. Like the arrogance displayed here.

Originally posted by LightBearer

A human can contemplate the plants and animals, the grandeur of the mountains and oceans around him, the vastness of the starry heavens above him, and feel his smallness. He is aware of time and eternity, wonders how he got here and where he is going, and gropes to understand what is behind it all. No animal entertains such thoughts. But a human seeks the whys and wherefores of things. All of this results from his being endowed with an awesome brain and his bearing the “image” of the One who made him.

Have you talked with animals? You seem to know alot of what goes on in their minds.

Originally posted by LightBearer

With amazing insight, the ancient psalmist David gave credit to the One who designed the brain and whom he considered to be responsible for the miracle of human birth. He said: “I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, as my soul is very well aware. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was woven in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing.” Psalm 139:14-16.

Isn't animal birth just as much a miracle?

I've always thought that higher apes have a better lifestyle, they do a lot less stupid things than we do...

Originally posted by LightBearer

Truly, it can be said that the fertilized egg in the mother’s womb contains all the parts of the emerging human body “down in writing.” The heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the eyes and ears, the arms and legs, and the awesome brain—these and all the other parts of the body were ‘written down’ in the genetic code of the fertilized egg in the mother’s womb. Contained in this code are internal timetables for the appearance of these parts, each one in its proper order. This fact was recorded in the Bible nearly three thousand years before modern science ever discovered the genetic code!

Shall we talk about all the other "facts" recorded in the bible?

 

[lohankuo]

In Genesis, God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." v21 and "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. v24 Birds, water and land creatures are all created separately and according to its kind. God did not say let birds derive form reptiles in a few million years!

In the case for humans, we are created in the image of God. It does not mean in a physical sense but means we are created as a spiritual (personal, relational), rational (thinks), volitional (has an objective, choice) and emotional (feels) being (all God's nature). No animal in this world have that same privilege. That is what sets us apart from animals. If you are an evolutionist, how all these traits just spontaneously appeared through the ape to human transition is just unthinkable!

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by wb3
I think to say that God created us through evolution takes the legs right out from under the Bible. ... Rich Mullins put it best "Our God is an awesome God".

I couldn't agree more. Thanks for saying it.

 

[LightBearer]

Originally posted by lohankuo
In the case for humans, we are created in the image of God. It does not mean in a physical sense but means we are created as a spiritual (personal, relational), rational (thinks), volitional (has an objective, choice) and emotional (feels) being (all God's nature). No animal in this world have that same privilege. That is what sets us apart from animals. If you are an evolutionist, how all these traits just spontaneously appeared through the ape to human transition is just unthinkable!

This is certainly in harmony with what the Apostle Paul said at Colossians 3:9-10 ”Strip off the old personality with its practices, 10 and clothe yourselves with the new [personality], which through accurate knowledge is being made new according to the image of the One who created it".

Note: It is the human personality(with Godlike qualities such as Love, Sense of Justice, Wisdom ect) that was created in God's image not the physical likeness.  These qualities seperate us from the animals by an enormous and unbridgable gulf.