Christianity... and the fact of evolution

Indent

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If evolution is one of the strongest explanatory theories in any academic field, I mean, the evidence is simply overwhelming, how do Christians reconcile this?

What about the Biblical scholars that generally dismiss Genesis as a "historical" representation... but rather "myth" (however you want to define that)?

I understand I'm courting "controversy" here, but I'd genuinely like to hear this, supposedly, untouchable theological answer.
 
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Evolution remains a theory, not a fact.

Everyone has a choice.
Either believe God's explanation of creation and life issues.
Or don't believe.

It is a choice.
That is why God told us to choose life that we and our seed may live.
 
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farout

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If evolution is one of the strongest explanatory theories in any academic field, I mean, the evidence is simply overwhelming, how do Christians reconcile this?

What about the Biblical scholars that generally dismiss Genesis as a "historical" representation... but rather "myth" (however you want to define that)?

I understand I'm courting "controversy" here, but I'd genuinely like to hear this, supposedly, untouchable theological answer.


I suppose like those who knew so much more, than what was told them as a warning, and they choose to ignore the ignorant farmer. Yep the people were told for many, many years about the situation but refused to listen. Today its the same. Noah tried, and Christians who believe the Bible have believers in the lie that eveloution was true. How can anyone believe such garbage?
 
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Indent

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Evolution remains a theory, not a fact.

Everyone has a choice.
Either believe God's explanation of creation and life issues.
Or don't believe.

It is a choice.
That is why God told us to choose life that we and our seed may live.

It's both a fact and a scientific theory.

It's common for Christians to call it "just a theory." It demonstrates a failure to understand what is being communicated.

Secondly, presenting a false dichotomy isn't a theological explanation.
 
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farout

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It's both a fact and a scientific theory.

It's common for Christians to call it "just a theory." It demonstrates a failure to understand what is being communicated.

Secondly, presenting a false dichotomy isn't a theological explanation.


Yes evolution is truly a false religion. If you don't think so then you are deceived.IMO
 
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Indent

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I suppose like those who knew so much more, than what was told them as a warning, and they choose to ignore the ignorant farmer. Yep the people were told for many, many years about the situation but refused to listen. Today its the same. Noah tried, and Christians who believe the Bible have believers in the lie that eveloution was true. How can anyone believe such garbage?

Care to explain how evolution isn't true?
 
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Indent

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Yes evolution is truly a false religion. If you don't think so then you are deceived.IMO

I don't believe evolution is a religion.

I do, however, believe some Christians are too puffed up with pride and conceit to have a proper engagement with the challenges that face Christianity today.
 
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farout

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Care to explain how evolution isn't true?


I know to you what the Bible says is false to you. But to many that's how we see creation. If you can believe something with so many gaps. more power to you. I just have not got enough faith to accept it all started by something ona rock form outer space.
 
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Indent

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I know to you what the Bible says is false to you. But to many that's how we see creation. If you can believe something with so many gaps. more power to you. I just have not got enough faith to accept it all started by something ona rock form outer space.

It's not a matter of me thinking the "Bible is false."

It's a matter of what is being communicated in the Book of Genesis. I do think Genesis holds important messages for us, but it's not a journalistic account of material origins. I rather like N.T. Wrights understanding of the creation accounts.

What are you referring to when saying "so many gaps"? I'd say that's likely an uninformed opinion.

I'm not concerned about abiogenesis (origins), but the central pillar of evolution: common descent.
 
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klutedavid

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It's not a matter of me thinking the "Bible is false."

It's a matter of what is being communicated in the Book of Genesis. I do think Genesis holds important messages for us, but it's not a journalistic account of material origins. I rather like N.T. Wrights understanding of the creation accounts.

What are you referring to when saying "so many gaps"? I'd say that's likely an uninformed opinion.

I'm not concerned about abiogenesis (origins), but the central pillar of evolution: common descent.
Hello Indent.

A 'common descent', mankind descended from what?

Hope your not going to rely on the fossil record, to construct that pillar of evolution.
 
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Indent

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Hello Indent.

A 'common descent', mankind descended from what?

Hope your not going to rely on the fossil record, to construct that pillar of evolution.

It refers the scientific theory that all living organism on Earth descended from a common ancestor.

If you're capable of raising the question, you're capable of looking it up. There's a lot more to evolution than the fossil record, I assure you.

The purpose of this thread isn't for me to explain complex theories, but looking for the theologically sound position that makes evolution incompatible with Christianity.
 
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hedrick

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There seem to be three types of answer:
* Evolution (and the big bang, and various other things that contradict a literal reading of Scripture) are false, no matter wha the evidence may seem to show.
* The Bible can be understood as compatible with the scientific evidence. In this category are various approaches that take a "day" in Genesis as representing a much longer period. This doesn't deal with the archaeological debates about the Exodus, however. Thus this position ends up rejecting some mainstream history, though not the Big Bang and evolution.
* The Bible, while including many historical events, includes traditional stories for periods before there were records. These stories are important because they show how Israel conceived the relationship between God and creation, and for later stories, the nature of Israel as a covenant people.

The first two positions can be reconciled with Biblical inerrancy. The third cannot.

You can find books and web sites promoting all three of these positions. I accept the third.
 
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bbbbbbb

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There seem to be three types of answer:
* Evolution (and the big bang, and various other things that contradict a literal reading of Scripture) are false, no matter wha the evidence may seem to show.
* The Bible can be understood as compatible with the scientific evidence. In this category are various approaches that take a "day" in Genesis as representing a much longer period. This doesn't deal with the archaeological debates about the Exodus, however. Thus this position ends up rejecting some mainstream history, though not the Big Bang and evolution.
* The Bible, while including many historical events, includes traditional stories for periods before there were records. These stories are important because they show how Israel conceived the relationship between God and creation, and for later stories, the nature of Israel as a covenant people.

The first two positions can be reconciled with Biblical inerrancy. The third cannot.

You can find books and web sites promoting all three of these positions. I accept the third.

I find your position to be disturbing in that if you reject biblical inerrancy then you have opened up a huge can of worms so that you become the judge of what is useful in the Bible and what is not. When faced with such an inconvenient story as the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, which is patently contradictory to scientific reality, do you reject it? If so, who was the actual father of Jesus Christ?
 
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Indent

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I find your position to be disturbing in that if you reject biblical inerrancy then you have opened up a huge can of worms so that you become the judge of what is useful in the Bible and what is not. When faced with such an inconvenient story as the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, which is patently contradictory to scientific reality, do you reject it? If so, who was the actual father of Jesus Christ?


Well I find "biblical inerrancy" to be troubling: It's a prescriptive doctrine used to tell Christians how to interpret the bible, and it insults Christians from real challenge (it stifles the tough conversations). Furthermore, when looking at the behaviour and the dynamic of the bible, inerrancy starts to seem a bit flaccid.

You're making a slippery slope argument, but the bible is a more of a library than a book. It needs to be approached according to a number of factors like genre etc.

It's not about "what's useful" in the bible, it's a matter of interpretation. If someone thinks the opening chapters of Genesis are telling a particular story, and not a journalistic account of material origins, it's a matter of interpretation. I'd argue that the meanings and purpose found in the Genesis narratives are flattened out by Christians that demand the bible "ought to be" a particular way.
 
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Indent said:
If evolution is one of the strongest explanatory theories in any academic field, I mean, the evidence is simply overwhelming, how do Christians reconcile this?

From my experience, Christians reconcile this in one of two ways.

One is to recognize the One Creator God of the Universe as Eternal and having created (from scratch, from nothing) the entire Universe. This includes all physical things, like stars, planets, comets, nebulae, posies, puppies and people (list not all inclusive). This includes all 'foundational' things, like the laws of nature; gravity, electro-magnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces and stuff like how - on Earth at least - moving water causes erosion, plate tectonics. Not to mention arithmetic, lift characteristics and even rules of chemistry, moving bodies, harmony in sound and how to make brownies.

It includes 'evolution' as it exists as well.

Way number two is to hide from everything and keep repeating "God didit! God didit! God didit! God didit!" (Which is true as far as it goes, but it doesn't really explain anything, especially the 'how' of things.)

Indent said:
What about the Biblical scholars that generally dismiss Genesis as a "historical" representation... but rather "myth" (however you want to define that)?
There are at least two ways to consider that, as well. Bear in mind I haven't discussed this with 'every' person who espouses this view; and the same with the other side.

One is the group who actually favor the no-god or 'clockmaker god' solution. They aren't really Christian, or much anything else; perhaps 'humanist'. They don't want a 'god' around, especially one who is all powerful, controls all of history and tells them what they can and cannot do to live a full and prosperous (by God's terms) life.

The second group sees the Genesis account as true in underlying substance, but a rather simplified version comprehensible to humans with no understanding of anything more complicated than the lever and pottery. And taking care of animals.

The Genesis account established God as Eternal and Creator - thereby owner and manager, so to speak - of the Universe. Also, the creator of humanity. However, the account is simplified. (Most people currently don't grasp how the Earth is continually 'falling' into the Sun. Or how volcanoes work from the inside.)

Indent said:
I understand I'm courting "controversy" here, but I'd genuinely like to hear this, supposedly, untouchable theological answer.
Oh, brother! Be glad those who differ cannot burn you at the stake right now. The people who burnt Giordano Bruno for suggesting the Sun is 'just' a star have ideological offspring around still.
 
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hedrick

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I find your position to be disturbing in that if you reject biblical inerrancy then you have opened up a huge can of worms so that you become the judge of what is useful in the Bible and what is not. When faced with such an inconvenient story as the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, which is patently contradictory to scientific reality, do you reject it? If so, who was the actual father of Jesus Christ?
People are quite experienced in making decisions based on imperfect evidence. We do it ll the time. You're making a kind of weird argument, I think, that we can't believe any source of information that isn't perfect. That's not a position we take anywhere else in life.

In fact I think inerrancy is a lousy way to convince people to trust the Bible. There are plenty of things in the Bible that are reasonable if we evaluate the Bible as a normal historical source. But inerrancy ties our acceptance of the whole thing together. So if any of it becomes impossible to take historically, our whole faith is likely to collapse.

CF doesn't permit discussion of the Virgin Birth. I will point out however that that isn't equivalent to the matters I referred to. We have specific evidence for the big bang, the age of the universe, and evolution. We have no specific evidence for a human father for Jesus.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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If evolution is one of the strongest explanatory theories in any academic field, I mean, the evidence is simply overwhelming, how do Christians reconcile this?

What about the Biblical scholars that generally dismiss Genesis as a "historical" representation... but rather "myth" (however you want to define that)?

I understand I'm courting "controversy" here, but I'd genuinely like to hear this, supposedly, untouchable theological answer.

Hi Indent,

In response to your question, I reconcile the Bible with both my faith and my understanding of ToE by taking the hermeneutical path of Conrad Hyers and/or those at BioLogos [link here], along with various other Christian voices who take science seriously, as well as hearken to the supremacy of God's Word.

I don't think this issue is as big of a deal as many make it out to be, and I personally don't think this theological field of discussion should be one that causes us to bash each other over the head when trying to delineate our various viewpoints. What's most important is that we come to recognize that humanity is sinful and that we are each individually in need of God's redemption through Jesus Christ.

Whatever happened in primordial chaos as God's Spirit "hovered over it" isn't something for us to be overly concerned about---besides, those things from the prehistoric past can't do anything for us in taking us into the future with Christ as our Savior, other than to move us to contemplate His role as Creator.

Peace
2PhiloVoid
 
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I have not seen anyone demonstrate a new creature evolving from another creature, only variations of the same kind of creature, so to claim evolution as fact is in my mind, entirely ludicrous.
 
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