Why evolution should not be a religious issue

[Strathos]

Being a theistic evolutionist, I obviously believe in both God and evolution (or rather, accept evolution based on the evidence, just because I know some people will nitpick my wording on that).

But I have a question for creationists: If biological evolution (not talking abiogenesis here, just evolution) was proven to your satisfaction, would it cause you to lose your faith in God? I'm guessing probably not. So then why do so many people take this particular scientific theory as an affront to Christianity?

Also, for atheists: If it was completely proven to you that the ToE was false and everything we knew about modern biology was wrong, I bet you probably wouldn't start believing in God (at least not the Christian God), am I right?

So when you get down to it, the ToE really has nothing to do with religion or belief in God. They are separate issues.

 

[Alithis]

God says one thing ..you(man)say another -whose word shall i exercise faith in do you think ?

 

[Renee Tahass]

So when you get down to it, the ToE really has nothing to do with religion or belief in God. They are separate issues.

Of course they are separate issues who said they were not? if evolution was proven to be false today it wouldn't bring creationism or religion one iota closer to being true.

 

[Alithis]

funny . evolution has never been proven true .

 

[Mountainmike]

Also, for atheists: If it was completely proven to you that the ToE was false and everything we knew about modern biology was wrong, I bet you probably wouldn't start believing in God (at least not the Christian God), am I right?

So when you get down to it, the ToE really has nothing to do with religion or belief in God. They are separate issues.

Perhaps precision would help in questions.
You say ToE, there is no such thing.
And it is certainly not a fact as Dawkins says!

ToE is not a precise scientific definition.

ToE is a complex mish mash of much smaller (eg molecular biology genetic inheritance) theories, unproven and part proven hypotheses like "common descent"

I can also produce a plausibility argument that ensures common descent is only ever a hypothesis from pure logic. If life was sufficiently probable to happen somewhere by accident, then it was clearly probable enough to happen in several places. And if that is so, then there may be one or many common descendants, so disproving the ability to prove common descent!

The reality is we know that small changes can lead to adapting characteristics so the morphology of species can drift.
But knowing you can get closer to the moon by walking across the earth, is a long way from the intellectual leap that you can get to the moon by the same process of walking! As far as I am aware that just as there is no evidence either for the process or fact of abiogenesis, there is no evidence of the birth of a new species with for example different chromosome numbers. All there is is conjecture, and that is not an easy problem to solve, since it involves two unlikely genetic accidents, that are even more unlikely to produce a viable life form, but lucky enough to happen close enough to mate with each other. In short big holes in an assumption.

In short ToE is a big misnomer! It is not a single theory, and it is not even a complete hypothesis for the propagation of life.

I also hear the word theory and hypothesis used of abiogenesis (which is by far the greater problem) I can only comment in science it is neither.
Even to be a hypothesis, it has to be testable. Abiogenesis is not even a hypothesis, it is the name for a gaping hole in a paradigm that life was a biochemical accident!

Jury is out.

 

[Renee Tahass]

funny . evolution has never been proven true .

What a strange thing for you to say when you know nothing about evolution, I say that because if you knew about evolution you would not say it is not true, you may not like it but evolution BTW is a fact.

 

[Renee Tahass]

Perhaps precision would help in questions.
You say ToE, there is no such thing.
And it is certainly not a fact as Dawkins says!

ToE is not a precise scientific definition.

ToE is a complex mish mash of much smaller (eg molecular biology genetic inheritance) theories, unproven and part proven hypotheses like "common descent"

I can also produce a plausibility argument that ensures common descent is only ever a hypothesis from pure logic. If life was sufficiently probable to happen somewhere by accident, then it was clearly probable enough to happen in several places. And if that is so, then there may be one or many common descendants, so disproving the ability to prove common descent!

The reality is we know that make small changes can lead to adapting characteristics so the morphology of species can drift.
But knowing you can get closer to the moon by walking across the earth, is a long way from the intellectual leap that you can get to the moon by the same process of walking! As far as I am aware that just as there is no evidence either for the process or fact of abiogenesis, there is no evidence of the birth of a new species with for example different chromosome numbers. All there is is conjecture.

In short ToE is a big misnomer! It is not a single theory, and it is not even a complete hypothesis for the propagation of life.
Jury is out.

Then I suppose the only problem you have now is trying to figure out why evolution works.

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

Being a theistic evolutionist, I obviously believe in both God and evolution (or rather, accept evolution based on the evidence, just because I know some people will nitpick my wording on that).

But I have a question for creationists: If biological evolution (not talking abiogenesis here, just evolution) was proven to your satisfaction, would it cause you to lose your faith in God? I'm guessing probably not. So then why do so many people take this particular scientific theory as an affront to Christianity?

Also, for atheists: If it was completely proven to you that the ToE was false and everything we knew about modern biology was wrong, I bet you probably wouldn't start believing in God (at least not the Christian God), am I right?

So when you get down to it, the ToE really has nothing to do with religion or belief in God. They are separate issues.

The problem with evolution is establishing facts about the distant past, which we cannot verify or see in front of us in a laboratory. (Yes I know there are experiments to do with bacterial mutations or what have you, and the Galapagos finches, but these are very different). It's like a detective who finds a bunch of fossils and goes "ah well this one connects to this one, and this one appears older than this one", and then looks at DNA similarities between species, and they formulate a theory.

I just default to the position that I don't know what happened in the distant past, aside from what the Scriptures have clearly said. It isn't really a big issue to me. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't.

Evolution is a very elegant theory to be sure, I like how it fits all the fossils together and comes up with a way that all of life could have developed in all of its diversity. Whether it is actually true or not I do not claim to know, for I was not there in the distant past, the best we have are scientists playing detective.

I prefer the science I can see in a lab, right in front of me. There is clearly something different about the science I see in the lab in front of me, and the one that looks at fossil records over alleged millions of years and makes conclusions.

 

[Radrook]

What a strange thing for you to say when you know nothing about evolution.

Your premise is flawed.
Rejection of evolution doesn't necessarily indicate knowing NOTHING about it.
There are former evolutionists who understood evolution perfectly and who have turned creationists
There are scientists who understand Evolution perfectly and who reject it.

 

[Radrook]

Being a theistic evolutionist, I obviously believe in both God and evolution (or rather, accept evolution based on the evidence, just because I know some people will nitpick my wording on that).

But I have a question for creationists: If biological evolution (not talking abiogenesis here, just evolution) was proven to your satisfaction, would it cause you to lose your faith in God? I'm guessing probably not. So then why do so many people take this particular scientific theory as an affront to Christianity?

Also, for atheists: If it was completely proven to you that the ToE was false and everything we knew about modern biology was wrong, I bet you probably wouldn't start believing in God (at least not the Christian God), am I right?

So when you get down to it, the ToE really has nothing to do with religion or belief in God. They are separate issues.

If a scientific theory implies that the Lord Jesus Christ was mistaken in what he believed and taught concerning human origins then that scientific theory is indeed an affront to Christianity because it is implying that Jesus was a deluded charlatan.

 

[Mountainmike]

Then I suppose the only problem you have now is trying to figure out why evolution works.

With respect that it is more scientific imprecision.

If you mean..if we arrived at the position that it could be shown that species could all have achieved their present status by a completely defined biochemical process ( and we are not there yet) does not prove they were achieved by that process

In simple terms, evidence of the fact that I can walk from here to the nearest big mountain, does not prove that my presence on the mountain was achieved by walking.

By the way , I am a scientist and the technology interests me, my partner is also a molecular biologist, so I know a fair amount about it: but I do not think that making greater claims than we know for certain helps anyone!

 

[SteveB28]

God says one thing ..you(man)say another -whose word shall i exercise faith in do you think ?

Correction. Men said both things....


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[SteveB28]

funny . evolution has never been proven true .

Funny....no scientific theory has ever been "proven true".......



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[Renee Tahass]

Your premise is flawed.
Rejection of evolution doesn't necessarily indicate knowing NOTHING about it.
There are former evolutionists who understood evolution perfectly and who have turned creationists
There are scientists who understand Evolution perfectly and who reject it.

That is simply not true, no one rejects evolution if they understand it, to do so would be completely irrational.

 

[Mountainmike]

Funny....no scientific theory has ever been "proven true".......



.

Oh they have, ask the most eminent pseudoscientist that ever lived: Dawkins! Apparently something that is not even a proper theory is a"s close to being a fact as is possible to get!" If that doesn't mean proven true what does?

 

[SteveB28]

I prefer the science I can see in a lab, right in front of me. There is clearly something different about the science I see in the lab in front of me, and the one that looks at fossil records over alleged millions of years and makes conclusions.

Oh, in the lab...?

Do you mean like the Endogenous Retroviral evidence we can observe in the lab....?

Do you mean like the fusion that took place in human chromosome 2 that we can observe in the lab...?

Do you mean like the cases of new species having emerged, that we have observed, both in the field and in the lab....?

That kind of science......?



.

 

[SteveB28]

If a scientific theory implies that the Lord Jesus Christ was mistaken in what he believed and taught concerning human origins then that scientific theory is indeed an affront to Christianity because it is implying that Jesus was a deluded charlatan.

Jesus Christ wrote nothing down. Men wrote things down and claimed they were his statements.

 

[Radrook]

That is simply not true, no one rejects evolution if they understand it, to do so would be completely irrational.

That's like saying that no one rejects Christianity if they truly understand it because that would be irrational. Or better yet, that no one would reject ID if they really understood it because that would be completely irrational. Tagging anyone who rejects our ideas as uninformed simply based on their rejection doesn't in any way refute the counter-arguments they present and the reasons they provide for rejecting our preferred ideas. All it does is evade the responsibility of rebuttal by assuming an ignorance that in many instances doesn't exist.

 

[SteveB28]

If a scientific theory implies that the Lord Jesus Christ was mistaken in what he believed and taught concerning human origins then that scientific theory is indeed an affront to Christianity because it is implying that Jesus was a deluded charlatan.

And the theory of evolution, as with all scientific theories, implies nothing about any particular religious dogma.




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[Sultan Of Swing]

Oh, in the lab...?

Do you mean like the Endogenous Retroviral evidence we can observe in the lab....?

Do you mean like the fusion that took place in human chromosome 2 that we can observe in the lab...?

Do you mean like the cases of new species having emerged, that we have observed, both in the field and in the lab....?

That kind of science......?

None of those things establish the theory of evolution. A new species emerging is different, as a creationist would argue, from a whole new family of organisms emerging which are radically different. And yes, that would take many years to observe, it doesn't happen instantly, which is my point.