Former Christians

Captain Jackson said:

Former Christians, did evolution have anything to do with you losing your faith?

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No, actually it was YEC'ism (creationists), that did that...although I still have a belief in something larger than ourselves.

Captain Jackson said:

Former Christians, did evolution have anything to do with you losing your faith?

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Namaste Capt'n Jack,

nope... i suppose that i was a theistic evolutionist when i was a Christian.. no problems at all for me.

bevets said:

Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress. ~ Charles Darwin

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You omitted the part where evolution had nothing to do with this.

I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlasting punished. And this is a damnable doctrine. ~ Charles Darwin

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Did you read this? Darwin is condemning a Christian doctrine! It was Christianity that caused Darwin to lose faith, not evolution.

In high school I read Haeckel's Weltratsel naively and avidly, not as a guide to evolutionary studies but to have ammunition in arguments about the Bible and religion! ~ Ernst Mayr

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See? Nice to have you post quotes against your position, Bevets, but you did. Mayr didn't get his arguments against theism from evolution, but from Haeckel's non-scientific atheist diatribes!

Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion — a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint — and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it — the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today. ~ Michael Ruse

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No sources. Conveniet, huh? I know this one is not true because Ruse has written a book entitled Can a Darwinian be a Christian? where he pulls no punches. Ruse concludes that it is very possible for a Darwinian to be a Christian, and vice versa. Don't you ever feel bad about false witness, Bevets?

The still faithful might say I never knew grace, never had it; but they would be wrong. The truth is that I found it and abandoned it. In the years following I drifted away form the church, and, my attendance became desultory. My heart continued to believe in the light and the way, but increasingly in the abstract, and I looked for grace in some other setting. By the time I entered college at the age of seventeen, I was absorbed in natural history almost to the exclusion of everything else. ~ E. O. Wilson

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Now, Wilson is a person who has madea religion out of science. However, the quote doesn't say that science caused his falling away from theism. Notice the phrase "I looked for grace in some other setting." Wilson had already lost his faith and was looking for a substitute. Evolution had nothing to do with it according to this quote.

As the creationists claim, belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism. ~ William Provine

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LOL! And you believe this atheist propaganda?? Then why aren't you atheist? After all, if everything atheists say is true, then atheism itself must be true, right? What Provine is doing is revelling in the stupidity of creationists in making faith and evolution an either/or choice! He is saying that creationists are the best recruiters for atheism!

Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented. ~ William Provine

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Of course Provine wants this to be true. You're going to believe him at face value without looking into it? Did Provine say his atheism came from evolution? Not in anything you've given us so far.

Keep trying. So far all you've done is undercut your own position.

the problem is the belief that evolution and Christianity are incompatible.

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Are they not? I'm curious about how people reconcile the two. The apostle Paul based his theology on Adam and Christ. If evolution is true, then doesn't Paul's teaching in Romans fall apart?

After hearing a thought-provoking sermon from a pastor a few days ago who converted from agnosticism to Christianity in his mid-30's, I would be curious about the other side of the coin--what caused Christians to gain the faith.

greatcogitator said:

There are also fewer parents who kill their children, as you say we discipline, but also as you say our discipline serves a purpose, to stop bad behavior. God sends us to hell, no chance of redemption, and thus my analogy of the parent that kills their child.

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The chance for redemption is here on earth. God in his word tells you what to expect and will even show you the way out of eternal suffering. The rest is up to you. The question is: Is anyone listening?

Can we prove that love neccesitates freedom without taking preconceived notions of love? As well I bring up the parent example... A parent does stop the kid. Love is not only cutting the loved one free, but also preventing them from making huge mistakes. Love is also about saving the one you love from peril, you can't claim to love a child and watch as they burn themselves on the stove while you do nothing... that certainly isn't love. Yet God does it worse, he watches us pick up the gun and play with it a bit before we kill ourselves.

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Killing ourselfs, as you said, is our choice. God placed us here on this earth and gave us choices. Though it is not right(killing) as explained in God's word, He will not interfere if this is really what you want. Do you want God to interfere with everything you do? Ability to make choices also means freedom to carry them out. I have yet to see choices and freedom not work together.
There is also a point in life where we are considered adults and become responsible for our actions we take. If not then how could we ever be judged?

Regarding the OP: When I, as a YECist, first started to actually try and learn about evolution (i.e., what the scientists say about it and not what AiG says) I began to think that Christianity was probably based mostly on myth. Since then, though, my understanding that evolution doesn't conflict with Christianity has led me to think that YEC is a myth that was unfortunately and erroneously stuck onto Christianity and has virtually been canonized by some pseudo-science groups.

So perhaps the YECists used evolution as a tool to de-convert me for a time (as much as they intended the opposite), but I've since changed my mind.

-jon

jon1101 said:

Regarding the OP: When I, as a YECist, first started to actually try and learn about evolution (i.e., what the scientists say about it and not what AiG says) I began to think that Christianity was probably based mostly on myth. Since then, though, my understanding that evolution doesn't conflict with Christianity has led me to think that YEC is a myth that was unfortunately and erroneously stuck onto Christianity and has virtually been canonized by some pseudo-science groups.

So perhaps the YECists used evolution as a tool to de-convert me for a time (as much as they intended the opposite), but I've since changed my mind.

-jon

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YEC solidified my deconvertion...since I have come to the forums I have learned its possible to be a Christian and Evolutionist as well. In fact I think If I had not been brought up in a environment that pretty much said ( with no offical creed) if you accept Evo then you are not a christian...I would probably still be Christian, YEC is dogmatic theology, not science. How can YEC be science if they dont allow for the falsifications? Imagine how far medical science would have advanced if people ignored evidence that contradicts the presupposed assumtions of how the body works.

Robby said:

Are they not? I'm curious about how people reconcile the two. The apostle Paul based his theology on Adam and Christ. If evolution is true, then doesn't Paul's teaching in Romans fall apart?

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Not at all. Remember, Jesus died for your sins. Not Adam's. Yours. Paul uses Adam as the authors of Genesis 2-3 meant him to be used: as an archetype for each and every one of us.

Pius x11
"It is indeed remarkable that this theory(evolution) has been progressively accepted by researchers,following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence,neither sought nor fabricated,of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant arguement in favour of the theory"
I think that this puts religion and science in harmony although I still profess agnostism.

In a sort of response to OP:

before my conversion i was very much an evolutionist. I became a christian, and i am still pro-evolution, but seeing YEC stuff is often enough to make me cry, having been a staunch atheist for much of my life, i could spend hours arguing, and it seems you all can too, but people dont listen.

I dnot think that evolution is a valid basis for chucking away your faith, as it does not challenge (in my eyes) that God is God is Jesus or any meaningfull part of the bible.

literality in the OT? i dont need it.

Bevets said:

Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress. ~ Charles Darwin

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lucaspa said:

You omitted the part where evolution had nothing to do with this.

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'It could only be a bizarre coincidence' -- I know...

Bevets said:

Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion — a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint — and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it — the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today. ~ Michael Ruse

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lucaspa said:

No sources. Conveniet, huh? I know this one is not true because Ruse has written a book entitled Can a Darwinian be a Christian? where he pulls no punches. Ruse concludes that it is very possible for a Darwinian to be a Christian, and vice versa. Don't you ever feel bad about false witness, Bevets?

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"How evolution became a religion" National Post May 13, 2000

Bevets said:

The still faithful might say I never knew grace, never had it; but they would be wrong. The truth is that I found it and abandoned it. In the years following I drifted away form the church, and, my attendance became desultory. My heart continued to believe in the light and the way, but increasingly in the abstract, and I looked for grace in some other setting. By the time I entered college at the age of seventeen, I was absorbed in natural history almost to the exclusion of everything else. ~ E. O. Wilson

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lucaspa said:

Now, Wilson is a person who has madea religion out of science. However, the quote doesn't say that science caused his falling away from theism. Notice the phrase "I looked for grace in some other setting." Wilson had already lost his faith and was looking for a substitute. Evolution had nothing to do with it according to this quote.

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As were many persons from Alabama, I was a born-again Christian. When I was fifteen, I entered the Southern Baptist Church with great fervor and interest in the fundamentalist religion; I left at seventeen when I got to the University of Alabama and heard about evolutionary theory. ~ E.O. Wilson The Humanist September 1982 p.40

Bevets said:

As the creationists claim, belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism. ~ William Provine

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lucaspa said:

LOL! And you believe this atheist propaganda?? Then why aren't you atheist? After all, if everything atheists say is true, then atheism itself must be true, right?

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Do you believe the atheist propoganda that evolution happened?

Captain Jackson said:

Former Christians, did evolution have anything to do with you losing your faith?

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No. Before I became an atheist I did not even know that there existed people who did not accept evolution.

Hmm. I have already responded to this thread. I must be losing my mind ...

bevets said:

'It could only be a bizarre coincidence' -- I know...

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Actually I doubt that you do know Bevets, seeing as you couldn't find someone else to do your thinking for you in this regard.

Darwin's faith fell with his daughters death, but then again you've probably heard this before.

Bevets said:

Do you believe the atheist propoganda that evolution happened?

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It is not propoganda. It not only "has happened" it continues to happen today. What frightens you so much about this?

Moreover, we are witnessing stars being born and planets new planets being formed in our own galaxy, as I write this, is creation still happening? How can this be, I thought Genesis was a one time event were the heavens were created at once?

I stopped being a Christian about a year and a half ago, around the time I turned 19, but evolution had very little to do with it. I was raised as a Christian from birth, and accepted Jesus as my personal lord and savior when I was about seven years old. I accepted evolution gradually over two years from when I was eight to when I was about ten, and worked very hard to reconcile it with the Bible, which I did for nine years.

One of the ways that this eventually turned me away from Christianity is that it was one of several examples of Christians in general being no kinder, more logical, or more knowledgeable than any other group of people. Even if the Bible CAN be reconciled with evolution, God appeared to have made this reconciliation so difficult that most people either reject the Bible as I did, or use the notion that it's divinely inspired as a basis to conclude something false. If he wanted the Bible to serve as a guidebook to future generations, why did he make all of its descriptions of the physical world so unclear that people would conclude something incorrect from it until the physical evidence disproved them?

Evolution is the most recent example of this, but it is not the only example. People have also used information in the Bible to conclude that the world is flat, that animals cannot become extinct, and that the sun and all the stars and planets revolve around the earth. In each of these situations, the belief persisted until physical evidence forced Christians to re-interpret the Bible.

This is actually part of a much larger question of why God makes it so difficult for us to do what he says he wants us to do. I've explained in another thread that for God to have created all of space at once, he would have had to create all of time at once also, since neither of these can exist without the other: http://www.christianforums.com/t85666&page=1 This means that God chose for evil to enter the world, and he also chose to make Adam and Eve in such a way that they would be susceptable to it. The argument that making the universe differently would have given us less free will falls apart once one realizes that God has already planned every choice that humans make--after all, that's part of time also--and if he had made the universe a little bit differently, the only difference would be that the things we choose would have been slightly different.

To put it simply, all of my evidence in favor of Christianity has disappeared. All of the aspects of the world that it explains can be also explained in other ways. (I could give some examples of this, but it could probably be an entire separate thread.) There are also no predictions that the Bible makes that I could use to verify it, and all of the things that it appears to predict about Christians' behavior and their lives don't appear to exist either. (I'll also give some examples of this if asked for them.)

When I've discussed these facts with other Christians, what they eventually say is usually something like that the whole point of faith is that you believe something even when there's no evidence for it. That may be, but if there's no evidence to support Christianity, then there is nothing to recommend it over any other religion. I will always believe what I think is most likely to be true, and if the most likely thing isn't Christianity, then I think I should believe something else.

It was religious dogma that turned me away from Christianity. I was in the second grade, when I heard about original sin, damnation and salvation. I concluded that the Christian god was a malevolent moron.

First to the OP. I did not lose my christianity b/c of evolution.

I think evolution helped me to lose that last bit's of me that was deist. I reject the christain concepts b/c they were self-contradictory and incoherent. The study of evolution and science in general helped me to shed the need for a deist god. Some many people seem to confuse gerneral theism with christainity. The 2 are at odds with each other.

bevets said:

Do you believe the atheist propoganda that evolution happened?

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This is a ridiculous statement, only propogated by those who are completely ignorant or simply dishonest. There is no "atheist propogranda". The world's scientists, most of whom are theists, overwhelmingly accept evolutionary theory. Please, at least try to be honest in your posts.

Captain Jackson said:

Former Christians, did evolution have anything to do with you losing your faith?

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Yes, though I always believed in evolution even while Christian.

Why believe there has to be a creator of life if it is scientifically possible for life to come about on its own?