I feel like the only Christian who believes in evolution.

[~Anastasia~]

*deleted by poster*

Only just noticed that this is Eastern sub-forum

That's one reason it was better suited to St. Justin's. This is our debate forum. You don't have to be Orthodox to post here.

 

[Inkfingers]

That's one reason it was better suited to St. Justin's. This is our debate forum. You don't have to be Orthodox to post here.

Thank ye kindly

 

[Inkfingers]

I posted this meme I made in a sarcastic Facebook group called Orthodox Meme Squad. I've posted my own memes in this group and gotten lots of favourable responses.
This one was not favourable, and I got banned shortly afterwards being called an unorthodox heretic who was brainwashed by Jews and liberals.

My priest and godfather don't believe in evolution. Nobody I knew of in the Baptist church I grew up believed it either. I just feel like I'm the only Christian who does a lot of the time.

I have not and will never vote Democrat. The number of people in the US who believe in evolution and can honestly say that seems to be a small minority. Being a 'Christian' and believing in evolution is often associated with believing in same sex marriage and abortion.

Yup, I so understand this, being a proponent of theistic evolution in a world where many of the people who share my opposition to same-sex marriage are themselves creationist.

Fun, isn't it.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I'm not interested in endless back-and-forths where one side simply doesn't listen to the other. And the only kind of debate I am interested in is if either a non-Orthodox HONESTLY wants to understand why we believe what we believe; is open to apologetic answers, or an Orthodox Christian HONESTLY wants to understand why the traditional teachings are what they are. If that desire to understand the opposing view is there, I'm in. If it's not, I'm out.

(Especially to Anastasia) The modern idea of Darwinian macro-evolution (as opposed to observed micro-evolution, the observed local adaptations of species (which does not represent actual change of species) IS a real threat to Orthodox thought and theology. It rejects the majority consensus of the fathers on Creation, that God created man separately through special action, and winds up having massive effects on Church teaching. People who accept it gradually come to doubt or deny many other teachings previously accepted as established doctrine; the idea that Adam was a literal historic personage and the first human in human history, and the father of the human race. That denial casts into doubt Adam's status as a holy forefather, and contradicts his iconic representation, and leaves anyone who has him as a patron saint as praying to an abstraction rather than to a real, living person. That's one tiny effect of many. The doubt expands until many events, always understood as having literally happened, fall under the aegis of skepticism, believers who have swallowed evolution begin to think that the Tower of Babel, Joshua and the walls of Jericho, Jonah in the belly of the great fish/whale, "didn't really" happen; they become reduced to their allegorical significance only. The idea that such things could happen comes to be seen through an atheistic, materialist lens superimposed over the believing eye, and one by one, the believer begins to doubt God's power to do such things.

I have solid reasons for rejecting evolution, and that's just the very beginning: how it slowly destroys our faith and aligns our thinking with that of the world. But there is more than just that behind my thinking. You know I am a teacher that understands the schools and the history of public education. I know the system that produces the modern scientists with their utter lack of philosophy, where that system came from, why it was created and for what purposes. I have excellent reason to doubt the modern scientist, to see how they could all make the same mistakes and make them in unison, and come to the same erroneous conclusions. And the discussion of that education, that history that hardly anyone knows, together with the long collapse of genuine philosophy, observably falling into theological error at the time of Aquinas and the Schoolmen, and slowly, gradually, leading to the beginning of a steeper fall with Descartes, whose idea that thinking proves existence gradually solidified into the error that thinking a thing makes it so, to the defenses of reason (Kant, et al) that excluded numinous knowledge, or any form of knowledge not achieved by rational thought to the despair of Schopenhauer and the rational path to insanity plowed by Nietzsche, all produced a line of humanist thinking (humanism being that the human is the ultimate measure of things; man is to be his own god) that became the formational basis of the philosophy now taught to nearly all by compulsory government education and centrally-controlled mass media: pluralism, relativism and de facto materialism. The scientists view all of the evidence and draw all of their conclusions through those lenses.

Great post, Rus. And I'm glad to see you, and glad that you said what you did, for the benefit of whoever might benefit from it.

For a moment I was confused why you addressed it to me. Then I reread my post and I suppose it's this:

But as it happens, if I and others are wrong on some things, it wouldn't shake the foundations of either my scientific or theological beliefs. I just seriously doubt those other possible ways of understanding will turn out to be true.

I don't want to be misunderstood. I didn't read the link just above, but there ARE different ideas of what evolution might mean and what else might also be true. And note I said if I'm wrong on "some" things.

I'm just not seeing a possible reconciliation between total atheistic evolution and faith that believes in a literal Adam and a literal fall. And without a literal ancestral sin, much about our faith gets turned into something very meaningless. I suppose God could have created a mess and decided to raise up some pathetic creatures out of it, but that's a completely different dialogue than the one we are given for the reason Christ became incarnate, died, and resurrected. (Indeed, Protestants with PSA would have an easier time making it fit.)

No, if there WERE some alternative answers we have not been given that could explain some of what has been given (for example, that Earth had a certain history while what happened with Adam was actually in a separated place - the Garden of Eden not representing the entire earth history) ... even if an alternative explanation like that WERE true, it still includes a literal Adam and no, it would not shake my faith.

I don't believe in it.

But it wouldn't shake my faith.

As I said, the reason I don't believe in trying to make faith bow to the "scientific data" is that my intense investigation into the scientific data as one who was both educated in it and believing in it at the time - is what eroded my faith in the popular evolution story. Most people just accept what they are told. Essentially no one gets to the point of trying to more fully prove what they already believe in. So I have no need to make what I DO believe (Christian faith) bow down and take into consideration what I no longer believe (the popular evolution story).

Those who do make that effort because they accept both, well, I understand the cognitive decrees that make us need to have things balanced and agreed in their minds. God knows each person, and I don't. Who knows but that by prodding too much, I might upset someone's need to balance thoughts and push them further from the truth, if they aren't ready to hear what I have to say? I wouldn't want to be responsible for that. I'm NOT saying someone else shouldn't say what they feel they should - not by any means. Sometimes it needs to be said. I'm just not confident of doing so at the right time with many folks and I don't often see fruit from my unique angle, so I usually don't.

But. I'm so glad you posted what you did. And I really appreciate any concern behind it, for me or anyone else. And I did not mean to imply that I can see an easy coexistence between the idea of the teaching we have received and outright atheistic evolution.

God be with you, my brother. And please, let us see more of you around here.

 

[mothcorrupteth]

I believe in macro-evolution, but I don't believe it was the origin of life on Earth or of humans; I just believe it can happen and probably has happened in the brief history of Earth, and that it could possibly happen on other planets.

When I realized that Sola Scriptura was wrong, at the same time I gained the ability to articulate why I was dissatisfied with so much of academic science.

As Jordan Peterson says, there are an infinite number of ways to interpret reality, but only some of them function or work for people. And people do the same with Holy Scripture. They look for dots to connect and end up connecting ones that don't exist, and the connection itself doesn't work, doesn't interface with the way God created us. Calvinism, for instance (I only pick on it because I've been a Calvinist), has a very robust and satisfying systematic theology that makes sense on an intellectual level. Which is part of its appeal; it feels so certain, so sure of its conclusions. But you sic it on mental health issues and the cracks start to show. You sic it on the mate selection process and education and it starts to produce young adults who are paranoid of their own feelings and the non-Christian world.

Scientism--this attitude of making empirical science the end-all to be-all--does much the same thing, but the observable world stands in for Scripture. Hey, Darwinism has a very satisfying explanation for how the world came to be. I'll say that in all honesty. It really does. I certainly think it explains differentiation of male and female social roles very nicely, and Robert A. Heinlein's application of that to the ethics of "women and children first" resonates with me on a very deep level. But if you actually try to live out Darwinism... True altruism doesn't exist; anybody who helps you is getting something from it. Your mother, for instance, only loves you because doing so passes on the 50% of your genes that come from her. And if that's true of your own mother, then think about your friends, your significant other, your pets. (Okay, the cat's a given; but think about your dog or your parrot.) Maybe macro-evolution created everything I see today, but believing that isn't too helpful psychologically. It presses me into a dark and lonely universe where nobody really cares about me. And if, according to Orthodox theology, the created world is an icon of God, what does that say about Him?

Convincing? Okay, I'll concede that. Actually workable? I don't see it.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Thank ye kindly

You are most welcome.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I believe in macro-evolution, but I don't believe it was the origin of life on Earth or of humans; I just believe it can happen and probably has happened in the brief history of Earth, and that it could possibly happen on other planets.

When I realized that Sola Scriptura was wrong, at the same time I gained the ability to articulate why I was dissatisfied with so much of academic science.

As Jordan Peterson says, there are an infinite number of ways to interpret reality, but only some of them function or work for people. And people do the same with Holy Scripture. They look for dots to connect and end up connecting ones that don't exist, and the connection itself doesn't work, doesn't interface with the way God created us. Calvinism, for instance (I only pick on it because I've been a Calvinist), has a very robust and satisfying systematic theology that makes sense on an intellectual level. Which is part of its appeal; it feels so certain, so sure of its conclusions. But you sic it on mental health issues and the cracks start to show. You sic it on the mate selection process and education and it starts to produce young adults who are paranoid of their own feelings and the non-Christian world.

Scientism--this attitude of making empirical science the end-all to be-all--does much the same thing, but the observable world stands in for Scripture. Hey, Darwinism has a very satisfying explanation for how the world came to be. I'll say that in all honesty. It really does. I certainly think it explains differentiation of male and female social roles very nicely, and Robert A. Heinlein's application of that to the ethics of "women and children first" resonates with me on a very deep level. But if you actually try to live out Darwinism... True altruism doesn't exist; anybody who helps you is getting something from it. Your mother, for instance, only loves you because doing so passes on the 50% of your genes that come from her. And if that's true of your own mother, then think about your friends, your significant other, your pets. (Okay, the cat's a given; but think about your dog or your parrot.) Maybe macro-evolution created everything I see today, but believing that isn't too helpful psychologically. It presses me into a dark and lonely universe where nobody really cares about me. And if, according to Orthodox theology, the created world is an icon of God, what does that say about Him?

Convincing? Okay, I'll concede that. Actually workable? I don't see it.

I like the way you think.

And yes, a very great deal of the time, we decide what to believe based on what makes sense to us. We NEED things to make sense.

I think evolution does that in such a neat package - on the surface - so that it IS very appealing. But like many things (some theologies for instance?) when examined deeply in other levels (as you and I have both done, though in different directions) ... it doesn't always make such sense.

I'm no physicist, but I'm told nothing makes sense to the human understanding if examined on too minute a level. Maybe it's our intellect that needs to catch up to reality. But yes, we psychologically depend on things making sense.

I'll be honest, that was a large part of the appeal Orthodoxy had for me. It makes everything make sense, when applied broadly. Thankfully that's not its only leg to stand on, or I'd be in trouble.

 

[archer75]

I guess I "believe" in it (it sounds plausible?), though unlike @~Anastasia~ , I've never studied any of the relevant disciplines. So I feel foolish even pretending to have an opinion. I also don't have the education to make head or tail of what the Fathers are said to have said about this, and I don't have the discernment to say whether the opinion of a modern saint is relevant. If Fr. Seraphim Rose made a mistake in his printing operation because he was misinformed or just failed to understand something, it doesn't follow from that that printing workd differently. It was just a mistake. And that doesn't affect that some venerate him as a saint. Why there couldn't be a more complex mistake apparently relevant to faith, I don't know.

On the other hand, I don't even understand for certain that there is a substantive difference between these views.

So in the end, I just have to affirm that God created the world and life and that I continue not to know "how" He did it. Although I also affirm that others know more than I do.

 

[All4Christ]

My biggest difficulty with macroevolution, in the sense of us evolving from another species, and not being there from the beginning, is original sin. I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen, and honestly, the old earth creation make more sense than the 7 day to me - but I don’t see how our theology of original sin really fits, in that we believe sin brought death and corruption into this world. I don’t know for sure what exactly happened, but I have a hard time reconciling our theology with evolution. I’ve read and listened to many things - but it still is difficult to fit together imho.

 

[ArmyMatt]

to the OP, you are not the only one who believes in it.

 

[All4Christ]

Fr Matt is right; the answer to your question is that there are other Orthodox Christians who believe in evolution. My previous answer was just some thoughts I have regarding the subject.

 

[Knee V]

This is an issue that I have dealt with for a long time. Evolutionism has been very tempting to me, as has atheism and completely giving up. In my own life I have seen that one leads to the other, and that it is only a matter of time before an acceptance of evolutionism leads to a loss of faith.

I understand that it seems like the preponderance of physical evidence leads to the conclusion that all life on earth has descended from a common ancestor hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago. But I have also come to learn that no matter what we think we see, I would rather trust those who have been illumined by the Holy Spirit and know the mind of the Church and of Christ, even if it doesn't make any sense. All faith and belief is an ascetical struggle; it is not always easy to accept what the Church has to say.

 

[Halbhh]

I posted this meme I made in a sarcastic Facebook group called Orthodox Meme Squad. I've posted my own memes in this group and gotten lots of favourable responses.
This one was not favourable, and I got banned shortly afterwards being called an unorthodox heretic who was brainwashed by Jews and liberals.

My priest and godfather don't believe in evolution. Nobody I knew of in the Baptist church I grew up believed it either. I just feel like I'm the only Christian who does a lot of the time.

I have not and will never vote Democrat. The number of people in the US who believe in evolution and can honestly say that seems to be a small minority. Being a 'Christian' and believing in evolution is often associated with believing in same sex marriage and abortion.

People judging you and then kicking you out regarding their own theories about Genesis chapter 1 may not be truly basing their faith on the foundation rock of Matthew 7:21-27, and so a good is to pray for them.

When they do wrong against you, then do good to them and pray for them.

 

[Jackson Cooper]

I'm not interested in endless back-and-forths where one side simply doesn't listen to the other. And the only kind of debate I am interested in is if either a non-Orthodox HONESTLY wants to understand why we believe what we believe; is open to apologetic answers, or an Orthodox Christian HONESTLY wants to understand why the traditional teachings are what they are. If that desire to understand the opposing view is there, I'm in. If it's not, I'm out.

(Especially to Anastasia) The modern idea of Darwinian macro-evolution (as opposed to observed micro-evolution, the observed local adaptations of species (which does not represent actual change of species) IS a real threat to Orthodox thought and theology. It rejects the majority consensus of the fathers on Creation, that God created man separately through special action, and winds up having massive effects on Church teaching. People who accept it gradually come to doubt or deny many other teachings previously accepted as established doctrine; the idea that Adam was a literal historic personage and the first human in human history, and the father of the human race. That denial casts into doubt Adam's status as a holy forefather, and contradicts his iconic representation, and leaves anyone who has him as a patron saint as praying to an abstraction rather than to a real, living person. That's one tiny effect of many. The doubt expands until many events, always understood as having literally happened, fall under the aegis of skepticism, believers who have swallowed evolution begin to think that the Tower of Babel, Joshua and the walls of Jericho, Jonah in the belly of the great fish/whale, "didn't really" happen; they become reduced to their allegorical significance only. The idea that such things could happen comes to be seen through an atheistic, materialist lens superimposed over the believing eye, and one by one, the believer begins to doubt God's power to do such things.

I have solid reasons for rejecting evolution, and that's just the very beginning: how it slowly destroys our faith and aligns our thinking with that of the world. But there is more than just that behind my thinking. You know I am a teacher that understands the schools and the history of public education. I know the system that produces the modern scientists with their utter lack of philosophy, where that system came from, why it was created and for what purposes. I have excellent reason to doubt the modern scientist, to see how they could all make the same mistakes and make them in unison, and come to the same erroneous conclusions. And the discussion of that education, that history that hardly anyone knows, together with the long collapse of genuine philosophy, observably falling into theological error at the time of Aquinas and the Schoolmen, and slowly, gradually, leading to the beginning of a steeper fall with Descartes, whose idea that thinking proves existence gradually solidified into the error that thinking a thing makes it so, to the defenses of reason (Kant, et al) that excluded numinous knowledge, or any form of knowledge not achieved by rational thought to the despair of Schopenhauer and the rational path to insanity plowed by Nietzsche, all produced a line of humanist thinking (humanism being that the human is the ultimate measure of things; man is to be his own god) that became the formational basis of the philosophy now taught to nearly all by compulsory government education and centrally-controlled mass media: pluralism, relativism and de facto materialism. The scientists view all of the evidence and draw all of their conclusions through those lenses.

Did not the fathers also believe there weren't any people on the other side of the planet?

 

[Jackson Cooper]

This is an issue that I have dealt with for a long time. Evolutionism has been very tempting to me, as has atheism and completely giving up. In my own life I have seen that one leads to the other, and that it is only a matter of time before an acceptance of evolutionism leads to a loss of faith.

I understand that it seems like the preponderance of physical evidence leads to the conclusion that all life on earth has descended from a common ancestor hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago. But I have also come to learn that no matter what we think we see, I would rather trust those who have been illumined by the Holy Spirit and know the mind of the Church and of Christ, even if it doesn't make any sense. All faith and belief is an ascetical struggle; it is not always easy to accept what the Church has to say.

I do not see how evolution leads to atheism. I do see how creationism leads to atheism.
Because of conspiracy theorists like Ken Ham, people feel like they need to choose between Christianity and science.
Once one accepts that Genesis 1-11 is parable, evolution no longer looks threatening.

 

[Jackson Cooper]

My biggest difficulty with macroevolution, in the sense of us evolving from another species, and not being there from the beginning, is original sin. I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen, and honestly, the old earth creation make more sense than the 7 day to me - but I don’t see how our theology of original sin really fits, in that we believe sin brought death and corruption into this world. I don’t know for sure what exactly happened, but I have a hard time reconciling our theology with evolution. I’ve read and listened to many things - but it still is difficult to fit together imho.

Nowhere in the Bible is the idea of sin causing animal death present.
I find it odd to think Adam and Eve had the power to change the course of the universe.

 

[Jackson Cooper]

to the OP, you are not the only one who believes in it.

Looks like I'm the only EO on this forum who does.

 

[All4Christ]

Looks like I'm the only EO on this forum who does.

There are several I know of here who believe in evolution who haven’t posted.

 

[All4Christ]

Nowhere in the Bible is the idea of sin causing animal death present.
I find it odd to think Adam and Eve had the power to change the course of the universe.

I’m referring to the teachings of the church, as well as Scriptures teaching that sin caused death. Nowhere does it specify “human” death. Either way, I don’t adhere to Sola Scriptura. The teaching of ancestral sin in Orthodoxy is certainly based off the Bible, but is clarified by the church fathers and theological teachings of the church.

The answer to your question, however, is that there are many who believe in evolution who are Orthodox. Check it Ancient Faith Radio, particularly Fr Thomas Hopko and Fr Stephen Freeman.

 

[mothcorrupteth]

I like the way you think.

I frequently think the same about things you post.