Evolution - a friend or a foe to Christianity?

[MightyTiny]

Couldn't sleep, so rather than tossing and turning in my bed, decided to get up and write this post about something I've been thinking about lately.

Namely, about how a good argument can be made to show that creationism, and Biblical literalism, actually does not only conflict with what science has revealed, but also denying the discoveries of science as they stand is also bad theology.

Now I am an atheist, and as such, see many problems with God belief which I'm not going to address here - here I'll try and look at the issue of evolution starting from the assumption that the Christian God does exist, somehow, and see where that takes me.

Don't really know whether there are many creationists hanging around, but if there are, I hope they, and anyone "undecided", read this.

First, I would recommend to any Christian either believing in, or being on the fence about Biblical innerancy and literalism, to read the Bible. The who thing, not just cherry picked parts of it. And read it asking yourself frequently - is the God being depicted here an accurate reflection of how I imagine God to be, or how Christianity in general presents God?

I think it should be quite clear from such a reading, that the Bible is, by and large, a depiction of how people several thousand years ago viewed their God, and the way they viewed their God was very much different from how modern Christians view God. To treat these texts as innerrant is bad theology, because it is so obviously false - because one doesn't even need to discuss contradictions in trivial details of stories, but the contradiction between the character of God in the OT starkly contrasts the image of God as a loving, forgiving, and benevolent being that modern Christianity promotes.

To read the Bible as a book of history or science, is an endevour doomed from the start: even of the creation event, the Bible contains two separate versions in Genesis. Rather than adopt contorted, ugly, ad hoc interpretations of these passages in an effort to force them to fit together, is it not wiser to note that a perfect, infinitely capable being would not author such confusion? That the text of a truly perfect being would be perfect in it's clarity and unambiquity? If the Bible is true in any sense, then it must be as a document of the history of belief; as a document of how God has been perceived by imperfect human beings in the history of the Judeo-Christian faith, and the stories of creation an attempt of these people at making sense of something that they could not have understood at the time.

If we start with an assumption that the Christian God does exist, isn't it a plausible and reasonable view of the Bible to think that it might have a true purpose and be true in that sense, not in the sense of it's contents and stories being literal descriptions of historical events? What if that true purpose of the Bible, intended by God, was to teach people intellectual integrity: the courage to look at the creation as it is - to look at what is written in large letters in the evidence of nature, and accept it, rather than hiding from the evidence, evading and distorting it, in an effort to retain a belief in the literal accuracy of Genesis? What if Genesis is a test - a test to see who would be brave enough to note that "the emperor has no clothes", and who would cower from the evidence, and go to any lengths to sustain a dogmatic belief in a story that God ment mankind to grow out of, once we achieved the maturity as a species to be capable of reading the real story of our origins straight from the evidence abundantly left behind in nature? The story written in fossils, in our morphology and geography, and finally in our very genes, in a language beautiful and clear to those who bother to learn to read it?

Should not this kind of a view of the Bible be at least considered, by any Christian with a genuine desire for truth, and without the highly arrogant belief that their interpretation of their holy texts cannot be mistaken? Isn't humility a virtue, and doesn't humility require one to accept that one might be mistaken?

With those thoughts I think I'll leave you now and try to get some shut eye. I'll be expanding on this argument later, with actual evidence from nature, and an argument to show that a Christian believer would do well to view evolution as an ally, solving a very difficult theological dillemma, rather than an enemy. A dillemma which any creationist world view must struggle with, but which the more moderate believer, who does not deny evolution, can go a long way towards resolving.

[Siamese_Dream]

When I can't sleep, know what I do? It rhymes with hasturbate.

[brownbearclan]

I still kind of like an idea that me and Raid were rolling around. That this world was formed and everything evolved exactly how science has proven it to, but maybe with the idea that an unknown force or spiritual power coaxed it all to come together how it has.

Humility is definitely a virtue as it is difficult for most of us to put into practice. And I know, because I am never wrong about anything lol j/k. :1bluewinky:

[Jegar]

Christianity is just a load of bogus, people had those stupid believes way back in time, and i think it's time to evolve and give up our stupid believes

[Rhomphaia]

(shoves the flame-bait attempt aside)

Okay Mighty, I think you have hit the way I view the Bible almost exactly. The Bible (unlike what most atheists try to make people believe) was not written by God. It was written by man, for different reasons. However, there is one thing I think you might have missed.

What if the Bible is (in a manner of speaking) a historical document? Not exact history like we see in textbooks, but a history written by those attempting to justify world events in a spiritual/miraculous light. This is not to say that miracles didn't happen, but maybe (for whatever reason) the original events were blown out of proportion, then documented as historical fact.

As far as I take the history of the Bible, I take it with a grain of salt. Was there a flood in Noah's time? Certainly. Did it cover the entire world? I don't know...likely not. It more likely covered the world as it was known by Noah, but not the Earth as a whole. This in no way lessens the impact or essence of the event, which in truth, is the important part.

[Jegar]

(shoves the flame-bait attempt aside)

Okay Mighty, I think you have hit the way I view the Bible almost exactly. The Bible (unlike what most atheists try to make people believe) was not written by God. It was written by man, for different reasons. However, there is one thing I think you might have missed.

What if the Bible is (in a manner of speaking) a historical document? Not exact history like we see in textbooks, but a history written by those attempting to justify world events in a spiritual/miraculous light. This is not to say that miracles didn't happen, but maybe (for whatever reason) the original events were blown out of proportion, then documented as historical fact.

As far as I take the history of the Bible, I take it with a grain of salt. Was there a flood in Noah's time? Certainly. Did it cover the entire world? I don't know...likely not. It more likely covered the world as it was known by Noah, but not the Earth as a whole. This in no way lessens the impact or essence of the event, which in truth, is the important part.

Why don't you pray for us all? Churchboy

[jaba]

Why don't you pray for us all? ChurchboyJust pray for the Swede - I'm ok thanks. :omg:

[Snuff.]

One flaw - the Bible is the word of God, and as far as I know he`s not been around to refurbish the faiths lately. Lord knows Islam could do with a visit, too!

Correct me if I`m wrong, but I don`t believe there`s a single, relatively mainstream Christian denomination that doesn`t accept the Bible as the 'word of God', so you`d have to be able to expand the capacity in which this tenet is applicable (as to incorporate evolution). I believe the consensus is that you can`t, which leads us back to the extremes of literalism with very little room to maneuver. It may be high time for a Christian church who`s founding doctrine is that the Bible isn`t the word of God! :1orglaugh:

[Jegar]

Wörd mon

[MightyTiny]

(shoves the flame-bait attempt aside)

Okay Mighty, I think you have hit the way I view the Bible almost exactly. The Bible (unlike what most atheists try to make people believe) was not written by God. It was written by man, for different reasons. However, there is one thing I think you might have missed.

What if the Bible is (in a manner of speaking) a historical document? Not exact history like we see in textbooks, but a history written by those attempting to justify world events in a spiritual/miraculous light. This is not to say that miracles didn't happen, but maybe (for whatever reason) the original events were blown out of proportion, then documented as historical fact.

As far as I take the history of the Bible, I take it with a grain of salt. Was there a flood in Noah's time? Certainly. Did it cover the entire world? I don't know...likely not. It more likely covered the world as it was known by Noah, but not the Earth as a whole. This in no way lessens the impact or essence of the event, which in truth, is the important part.

I think that mixed in the Bible is both the recording of tales told and re-told for centuries before written down, some of which are fusions of separate stories, and many of which had aquired aspects of other legends in the re-tellings. A proportion of it probably has it's origins in real historical events, but I find it very unlikely that the interpretation of those events given is historically accurate for the great majority of passages.

Was there a flood in Noah's time? I'd be very surpriced if there wasn't - large floods, on the scale of centuries, aren't uncommon in any location near water, and just about every nation that lives near waterways has it's flood mythology. (Which creationists present as evidence of a global flood, ignoring the fact that people inhabiting arid regions without big waterways tend not to have flood myths) There's even the possibility that the story originated from a flood of catastrophic scale, namely, the idea that the Black Sea was formed in a huge deluge event, covering great areas of land around 5600 BC. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory )

Was the flood global? Certainly not! The problems with such a notion are many, including the origin of the immense amounts of water that would have been needed to cover the lands globally, and the question of where all this water went after. In addition, the geologic record shows no great mass extinction just thousands of years ago, which would certainly have been the result of a global flood - moreover, had only a few members of each species survived, had species universally gone through such a ridiculously small bottle neck in geologically very recent time, we would expect to see astounding genetic uniformity in all species, which is not the case; the genetic variability within species differs greatly from species to species, and in most species, there is simply too much genetic variation to have arissen in just thousands of years.

I think the historicity of the Noah story begins and ends with "there was a big flood".

But again, returning to the question of how Christians who do not want to reject science should view the Bible, perhaps, if there was a purpose to these stories, it is a purpose of education, teaching a lesson to the believer: I heard, in a lecture/discussion on evolution and religion this suggestion, for example: what if the story of noah is to teach that dealing with your problems by just going on a rampage and tearing everything down, is ultimately not the way in which to deal with things? And I might add, what if the point of the story was precicesly that it was not historically accurate, that any observer who, with modern knowledge of the world and nature, looked at it, would discover it to be completely implausible? What if the POINT was that the believer should learn from this not to take things literally, and to understand that the story written in nature, in the actual evidence accesible to honestly inquisitive, humble efforts to understand it, should trump dogmatic belief in the stories of old?

This is the only real interpretation of the Bible that i can see as compatible with what science has revealed of the world - again, personally I view the Bible as just one of many collections of myths and legends, bearing some vague relation to historical events at points. But, as said, in this thread, I'm working from the assumption that the Christian God does exist.

Interestingly, looking into Biblical interpretations, I found out that Jewish tradition tends to view Biblical literalism as a form of idolatery, breaking the first commandment. The Talmud even records an opinion that the Book of Job and the story of Jonah and the whale may be allegorical.

I'll get back to my original argument a little later, perhaps tonight, as I find the time.

[MightyTiny]

One flaw - the Bible is the word of God, and as far as I know he`s not been around to refurbish the faiths lately. Lord knows Islam could do with a visit, too!

Correct me if I`m wrong, but I don`t believe there`s a single, relatively mainstream Christian denomination that doesn`t accept the Bible as the 'word of God', so you`d have to be able to expand the capacity in which this tenet is applicable (as to incorporate evolution). I believe the consensus is that you can`t, which leads us back to the extremes of literalism with very little room to maneuver. It may be high time for a Christian church who`s founding doctrine is that the Bible isn`t the word of God! :1orglaugh:

Well, the practical beliefs of most Christians around where I live tend to be very much non-literal; I think that most churches around here wouldn't claim innerrancy - mostly they would just explain the stories as allegories or symbolic in some way, teaching lessons about morality, rather than recording actual historical events.

I think that this literalism is rather concentrated in the States, and a few other locations, in fundamentalist movements.

Perhaps indeed it would be time for Churches to at least consider a change in doctrine that the Bible isn't the inspired word of God, but rather a record of the way in which people viewed God, historically - perhaps containing lessons not exclusively crafted into the stories themselves, but perhaps the nature of the stories and the morality displayed in them themselves contain a lesson about human nature, and the dangers of dogmatism? I really don't see why not. :xyxthumbs:

Again, shouldn't a Christian at least consider that the Bible may be true in the sense that it has a purpose intended by God, rather than it's contents being literally true?

[Big Ozzie]

Why don't you pray for us all? Churchboy

The Ignorance of this post is appalling!

[HeyBuddy]

Although the Bible is considered to be "the word of God", it was written by mortal men. Has it ever dawned on anyone that if someone asked God during the times in which the Bible was written, it would have been ridiculous for God to even attempt to explain evolution? He would have to start out by explaining how the first single cell organism came to be, at which point this person would already be completely lost. God would have to put it into a text using a simple and existing vocabulary or just create words that had never been uttered and then explain each word. If God did start talking about these tiny little cells, and the tiny workings of each cell and how these tiny things work, etc., and then tried to explain how evolution worked, someone of Biblical times could have very well interpreted it as, "We were created from dirt". Maybe God should have just said, "Figure it out yourself".

[Raidenator]

Again, shouldn't a Christian at least consider that the Bible may be true in the sense that it has a purpose intended by God, rather than it's contents being literally true?

Perhaps, but to me it sounds like by saying that, every interpretation of the bible IS true.

If the bible is supposed to be true in a different way than it is literal then that would make those racists, bigots, KKK's, and other religious fanatics right, essentially.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I believe similarly the same way you do but I'm playing Devil's Advocate here.

[MightyTiny]

If the bible is supposed to be true in a different way than it is literal then that would make those racists, bigots, KKK's, and other religious fanatics right, essentially.
.

Actually, if the Bible is to be taken as literally true THEN those racists, bigots, KKK's and other religious fanatics would be essentially right. You only have to read the OT to see that. :xyxthumbs:

For example, you know that group of religious fanatics in the US that protests at the funerals of soldiers killed in IRAQ, essentially celebrating the fact that God is punishing Americans for allowing things like gay behavior to go on without doing what the OT commands you to do as punishment of such behavior - mainly kill them. :omg:

Essentially, if the Bible is to be taken as literally true, they - no matter how disgusting and unpalatable their behavior is - are right. God distinctly mentions horrible consequences for nations which fail to prosecute and punish a variety of behavior including gay sex. Or I should rather say that God threatens horrible consequences for Israel, if it fails in this regard. But if you can't generalize these commandments given to Israel to apply to all believers, then it would be inconsistent to think that the ten commandments apply to non-Israelites either.

That is why I recommend that anyone believing in absolute literal inerrancy, start with actually reading the Bible, cover to cover. They will see a marked contradiction between the benevolent image of God that Christianity promotes, and the God as believed in by the people who wrote the OT.

Now the literalist is forced to try and reconcile the mudrerous, petty and cruel God of the OT - who is imagined, by the writers, to be much like a human ruler of immense power would be. If the only example of power that these people had was of earthly dictators exerting, or trying to exert, absolute control over their people, with demonstrations of cruelty, is it so surprising that when they imagined what God with his absolute power is like, they imagined a human tyrant, magnified to extremes?

So the task of the literalist who wants to see God as loving and benevolent, has the uneasy task of dealing with the tyrant of the OT, trying to overlook the atrocities proudly ascribed to him therein, reaching for no less absurd and silly sounding interpretations to try and justify those actions than what the subjects of "loving" tyrants such as the "beloved" leaders of North Korea use to reconcile a terrible reality with the idea of a perfectly loving leader.

It's either that, or go the way of the fundamentalist who goes to the OT mode with full gusto, to the extent that the suffering and sorrow of families mourning their dead means nothing in the face of the wonderful will of their jealous god.

I do not see either path as one that should appeal to Christians, especially since Biblical literalism forces you to blind yourself to beautiful, old and intricate Universe that is - if there is a Creator God - an infinitely more impressive and beautiful than the bronze (iron?) age authors of the Bible had the capacity to conceive.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I believe similarly the same way you do but I'm playing Devil's Advocate here.

I do understand that, and playing the "devil's advocate" is quite useful - I do it myself a lot. :xyxthumbs:

But I do doubt that you believe the same way about the Bible as I do, as, as I have to point out, I too am playing the devil's advocate in this thread. My own position is, as an atheist, that the Bible is no different from any other national epic or religious mythology, and thus has, in it's origins, no involvement from any supernatural entity, in any shape or form.

What I'm doing in this thread is looking at how - if we assume that the Christian God were to exists - I would look at the Bible. Essentially, I'm exploring how I, were I a Christian, would seek to reconcile the Bible with reality. And that may, indeed, be very much akin to how you believe. :)

[Big Ozzie]

Oh Boy!
As a Man of Faith, I seriously want to get in on this, but it will have to wait.....for now!

[MightyTiny]

This thread is kinda derailing slightly from the original intent, which was not to focus on biblical literalism alone, but to show how the evolutionary theory can be a "friend in disguise" to a Christian who opts not to go the literalist way, and that's what I think I'll qualify here:

First, a common criticism that I hear from creationists, when they are asked whether they could not consider that Evolution might be the way in which God creates. The answer is usually something like: "The survival of the fittest is such a cruel and wasteful process that God would never do it that way."

But that ignores one simple observation: nature is already, today, in it's observable every day operation, cruel and wasteful!

A Creationist cannot escape the dilemma: "Why would a loving God have created nature that was so cruel and wasteful?" simply by saying that evolution didn't happen - you do not need evolution to note that nature is cruel and wasteful.

Many theologians noted, in Darwin's day, that Darwin, far from being a threat to Christianity, provided some sort of an answer to this dilemma, that existed and had been raised as a problem for Christianity far before evolutionary ideas. At least, if evolution is true, then that cruelty and wastefulness serves a purpose: it is part of the mechanism of creation.

That is why a theologian of Darwin's day (I cannot, for the life of me, remember the name) noted that Darwin was essentially a sheep in wolfs clothes, and the threat from Darwinism was no threat at all, but a solution.

Besides the creationist being left to try and struggle with the purposeless cruelty of nature specially created to be cruel and wasteful, they also have to contend with the basic fact of imperfection in design in nature.

Imperfection in the structures of living organisms, sub-optimal solutions, are common as dirt; just as one would expect if they were produced by the process of natural selection acting on random variation.

I'll give a couple of examples. First, the "recurrent laryngeal nerve" - which is the nerve that connects the laryngeal muscles in the throat to the brain. A designer who consciously planned the nerve, would find the task rather easy - just a straight line along the neck up to the brain, right?

However, that's not how the nerve is "wired" - instead, it goes from the neck down to your chest, loops around the aorta and an artery in the chest, then double-backs back up to the muscles in the neck it controls.

Even in humans this is rather silly, but the same nerve exists in all mammals, and in every one, takes this same circuitous route looping around major vessels in the chest, serving no purpose there, before climbing back up the neck.

In the Giraffe you can imagine how suboptimal this is - the huge length of "wire" going up and down the neck, when it could be a short bit forgoing that unnecessary loop.

The creationist answer to this is essentially: :omg:

Nobody knows the whims of God, so maybe he just has an odd sense of humor.

The evolutionary explanation is simple and elegant - in the common ancestor of mammals, hundreds of millions of years ago, in the body plan of that ancestor, the shortest route between the nerve and it's target in the body happened to go on one side of the aorta, as opposed to the other. This arrangement was inherited by all it's descendants, which, throughout millions of years of evolution, split and gave rise to the mammal species we have today. In the process of evolution, the arrangement of muscles and organs shifted, gradually, and the nerve was trapped on the wrong side of the aorta - if only evolution could start fresh, it could simply rewire that nerve to go on the other side, but evolution does not work like that. Evolution works through gradual intermediate steps, and there is no gradual path to switch sides for the nerve - it would have to be done in one big gigantically unlikely mutational leap.

So, mammals are stuck with the bad wiring, even the Giraffe.

Then there's this fella:

http://i7.tinypic.com/4kltuo3.jpg

The giant panda is a great example of a creature who's features are very hard for a creationist to account for.

It is herbivourous, and it's diet consists almost entirely of bamboo - yet, it does not have the fully formed internals of a herbivore: it is half way between carnivore and herbivore.

Herbivores tend to very long intestines, in which the cellulous plant material can be efficiently digested. The giant panda's intestines are more like those of a carnivore, and it isn't able to fully take advantage of it's bamboo diet - this is why it has to spend most of it's time eating, just to sustain itself: it's digestive system is rather ill-suited for it's diet.

The giant panda also cannot move it's jaws sideways, like herbivores generally do - if you look at cows eating, they grind the plant material with jaw motions which include sideways movement. The giant panda is unable to do that, and so the Bamboo it swallows isn't fully ground down but instead includes sharp bits that can damage the digestive tract - which is why the giant panda has evolved thicker lining of the esophagus than observed in normal carnivores.

The giant panda also has a "thumb", for which it is famous, and this thumb isn't actually a digit, but instead, is formed from an enlargement of one of the wrist bones.

So if a creationist explains similarity of design across species with a common designer simply reusing a design, apparently when He was designing the giant panda, he wasn't just having a bad day with the ill-suited, half way herbivore digestive system, he also decided not to shift the position of one of the bones in the paw to form an opposable thumb, but for some bizarre reason, decided to make one of the wrist bones jut out.

The imperfection of the giant panda's design is easily explained by evolution: the giant panda's fairly recent ancestors switched from a mostly carnivorous diet, to a herbivorous diet, probably as a result of famine, a depletion in the normal diet of the carnivorous ancestor - with that shift in diet, any small mutations that helped individuals possessing them to gather and process the plant material more effectively were favored; thus the enlargement of the wrist bone to form a counterpoint to the paw to help in grasping bamboo stalks, and the protective lining in the esophagus to prevent lacerations from poorly chewed bamboo.

Give them another million years or so, and you'll find them looking a lot more like a proper herbivore, and a lot less like a carnivore in process of becoming a herbivore.

Nature is full of examples like this - of sub-optimal design and oddities, which immediately make sense from an evolutionary perspective, but which are inexplicable, to say the least, if viewed as having been specifically created to be such, by a perfect designer!

So evolution explains another dilemma too: and it is "why would a perfect creator create imperfect design?" - the answer evolution gives to the believer is this: because such curiosities are part of the method in which creation functions.

If there truly is a perfectly capable God, then wouldn't it be a much more impressive feat for him to have made life create itself, rather than just snap his metaphysical fingers and pop fully formed modern animals into existence? The latter, to me, seems a relative to the clumsy God that had to intervene to keep planets moving along their orbits, before Newton relegated the task to a force of nature that needs no such hands on tinkering. Was Newton taking away from God by explaining gravity? For a modern mind that suggestion seems silly, yet there were believers in Newton's day who thought exactly that. They have - as I see them - their contemporary cousins in the creationists of today, who likewise fail to see that a God that creates without needing to tinker is a greater, more admirable being, than one who's Universe needs constant attention.

So rather than go for fundamentalist biblical literalism, with all it's implausibilities and problems, why not accept the Bible as a document of historical belief, with perhaps a purpose as teaching a lesson about belief itself, and about humility, and about the courage to face the world as it is revealed to us in the greater story written all over the bodies of the creatures that inhabit this Earth, like the Giant Panda with it's imperfections, or humans and giraffes with bizarre wiring?

If the Bible indeed is a test for the believer - with the purpose of the believer discovering that it isn't literally true, to teach the believer humility and to separate those who would rather resort to questionable tactics of cherry picking, hiding and distorting uncomfortable evidence, and resorting to desperate, contorted interpretations, just to retain one's own belief of what the Bible is meant to be, then as a test it works pretty well.

Just look at the claims and tactics employed by Creationists - the desperation, the hiding, the dishonesty. Does the creator of the Universe really want to be represented by such methods? What if these people are failing the test, that is the true purpose of the Bible?

Just some food for thought.

[MightyTiny]

Although the Bible is considered to be "the word of God", it was written by mortal men. Has it ever dawned on anyone that if someone asked God during the times in which the Bible was written, it would have been ridiculous for God to even attempt to explain evolution? He would have to start out by explaining how the first single cell organism came to be, at which point this person would already be completely lost. God would have to put it into a text using a simple and existing vocabulary or just create words that had never been uttered and then explain each word. If God did start talking about these tiny little cells, and the tiny workings of each cell and how these tiny things work, etc., and then tried to explain how evolution worked, someone of Biblical times could have very well interpreted it as, "We were created from dirt". Maybe God should have just said, "Figure it out yourself".

Glad to see you back in business. :xyxthumbs:

That is pretty much how I viewed the Bible back when I was a Christian - or at least in the later times of my time as a Christian.

It's indeed a way of looking at the Bible that I find much better than the literalist view, which is rife with problems... a few of which I explained in the post above.

[panther09]

whether this was mentioned before im not sure (because mighty likes to write more than i like to read), im not even positive on what the aurgument is about but here it goes.....

creationists are idiots. my biggest caseagainst them is that astronomers can prove that there are stars 45 million plus light years away that we can see. meaning the universe is a hell of a lot older than 6 thousand years (which is what creationists say how old the universe is). their argument against this is that when God made the universe light was able to travel much faster then it can now.

i am catholic and believe creationists and bible literalists are extremely ignorant.

[Red/Yellow]

The bible is open to constant re-interpretation; the literalists are forced constantly to change their positions by new scientific evidence (flat-earth for example). Thus as there are so many avenues for re-interpretation, it could be spun in a positive light for certain groups.

One only has to look at the 33,200 denominations of Christianity to realise that such a book would allow for such reforms.




However this leads to another problem, how could an omniscient being intend to create (or rather cause) such a book with all these avenues for re-interpretation. The only solution (assuming such a god existed) to this little problem is that he wanted all these interpretations; so what does this mean?

If an omniscient being wanted a book with a high level of interpretations, it would expect the high level of denominations which would result from it. I guess that would just confirm your theory of the bible being used as a tool rather than a literalist form. However, I agree my theory is flawed as it would involve a god which would contradict some of the main descriptions of god; including the belief that it wouldn't lie.

[footballbat]

One only has to look at the 33,200 denominations of Christianity to realise that such a book would allow for such reforms.


Wow! That's a large number you pulled out of your ass. Would you mind backing that up with some facts. I've already looked for the real number, and the closest I came was around fifty (no exact figures).

As to the topic of this thread, I don't see where evolution is a help or hindrance to Christianity. I don't have to believe evolution is anymore real than the Genesis story. Honestly, I don't care.:drinkup:

[AllisterFiend]

I don't see how you could be a Christian and believe in evolution...

But I don't see how you could be an intelligent person and not believe in evolution, either. lol :1orglaugh:

[footballbat]

I don't believe in evolution, just as I don't believe in gravity. They exist, that's as much as I need to know about them. Neither of them add to, nor subtract from, my faith.

[Big Ozzie]

I don't see how you could be a Christian and believe in evolution...

But I don't see how you could be an intelligent person and not believe in evolution, either. lol :1orglaugh:

It is simple, Allister. Well at least for me it is. And many people say that I am pretty intelligent!
To me, following a Christian Faith is more a way of following certain ideals.
I have no doubt that Christ the man existed, this is supported by many different groups and religions.
I believe that Christianity is a guideline for living.
I also believe that life here on Earth has evolved over millions of years.
But, I do not believe that man evolved here on this Planet.
I believe that we were put here by superior beings..."Gods" or a God if you wish. But beings none the less.
Perhaps these beings were like our modern day scientist, experimenting will stem cell reproduction and genetic research. Perhaps they found this Planet that was in the middle of it's own Evolutionary process and decided to dump their experiments here and just see what happened.

I believe that man was created and put here by Alien Beings!!! http://forums.3dgamers.com/images/smilies/alien.gif :xyxthumbs:

[MightyTiny]

But, I do not believe that man evolved here on this Planet.
I believe that we were put here by superior beings..."Gods" or a God if you wish. But beings none the less.
Perhaps these beings were like our modern day scientist, experimenting will stem cell reproduction and genetic research. Perhaps they found this Planet that was in the middle of it's own Evolutionary process and decided to dump their experiments here and just see what happened.

As interesting as that scenario is, I'm sorry to say that it isn't remotely plausible.

Why? Because the fact that humans fit right into the big family tree that covers all life on Earth, has been shown to be true with a ridiculous excess of evidence.

Genetically, we are more similar to Chimps that horses are to zebras! :omg:

And it's not only the superficial similarity, or the quantitative similarity of our DNA, but also when you compare detail of the genes, the similarity is a very specific kind of similarity, that can only be explained through blood relations.

Even when taken alone, this genetic evidence leaves no room for reasonable doubt that we shared a common ancestor with all the great apes, with the chimps being our closest relations in the animal kingdom.

To enforce that, already open-and-shut case, we have a good collection of fossils of human ancestors, that show a clear progression from an ape-like ancestor to a modern human form.

I do not believe that not believing in evolution necessarily denotes lack of intelligence - but it does signify lack of knowledge. Of course you can't be convinced of a theory, if you've never really acquainted yourself with the evidence.

I've written about the genetic evidence that proves common ancestry between life on Earth - using humans and the great apes as an example - here: http://mightytiny.freepgs.com/Common_decent.pdf

It's somewhat long, and was written in a bit of a haste, and I haven't gotten around to revising it as I've been planning to, but it explains in pretty good detail why the genetic evidence incontrovertibly shows that humans fit right into the - very much terrestrial - tree of life. :xyxthumbs:

[AllisterFiend]

MightyTinys posts are always what I'm thinking but I can never write down. He's like the more intelligent older version of me. lol

Is that what you really think Ozzie? Because I really hope it's not. I'm not trying to call you stupid, but seriously... is there any particular reason for you believing this??:omg: And you still never replied to my post in the other thread. :D

[MightyTiny]

Thanks for the compliment AF! :o

[Big Ozzie]

MightyTinys posts are always what I'm thinking but I can never write down. He's like the more intelligent older version of me. lol

Is that what you really think Ozzie? Because I really hope it's not. I'm not trying to call you stupid, but seriously... is there any particular reason for you believing this??:omg: And you still never replied to my post in the other thread. :D


Sure, I was abducted in a Flying Saucer by little Green Men who performed experiments on my sex organs.
But is answer to your question. I have decided not to get into my personal beliefs by posting them on the Internet.
I have already stated that I am a man of Faith, meaning that with Faith, I believe without having any substantial proof.
What I believe in I am not quite sure.
I do believe in evolution....and yet, I still believe that there is a supreme or superior being.
Is that so bad?
Living a "Godly" existence and being a Good person is not that bad. Perhaps when I die, my body will be consumed by the Earth and all evidence of me ever existing will disappear forever into oblivion.
If that is true, did I live a good life in vain? I say no. Because to do some good to and for people will in a way give me immortality.
AND IF THERE IS A GOD, he gave me the ability to question and wonder why and how things are. And perhaps in his/her infinite wisdom, he will forgive me for questioning how and why I came to be.

AS FAR AS the Alien thing is concerned.....is it that "far out there"?
To deny the possibility of extraterrestrial life would be even more foolish than what you claim Christians are.
There are so many Universes and Galaxies out there, with most yet to be discovered. To think that this planet is the only one to produce life forms is absurd!

WHERE DID GOD come from? Where does he live? In almost any Religion the member will point to the sky or say "In Heaven".
Where is Heaven, but up in space. There are numerous accounts in history where people have reported alien beings visiting the Earth.
There are too many unanswered questions like "How'd they do that and Why?" with ancient civilizations on Earth. The Pyramids, the Nazca Plains, Easter Island, Stone Henge...the list goes on. Why and How would man have the knowledge to build massive pyramids, create celestial clocks before the invention of telescopes and a myriad of other things...then lose this knowledge.
Even in the Evolutionary process here on Earth, there is still that "missing link" between Modern Man and his prehistoric relatives.
Allister, you posted a series of pictures in the other thread that showed the progression of man in evolution. Even with all of your Internet surfing, you could not fill in that missing space.

OK, so you admit that there is a huge possibility that there is intelligent life on other planets.
WHAT IF....now only "what if" they were more advanced then man is now and visited this planet thousands of years ago.
WHAT IF they left or deposited life forms here...perhaps some of their own kind stayed here.
WHAT IF they were scientist and used Earth as a Biological experiment? A Giant Petrie Dish perhaps? There own little terrarium or aquarium so to say?

OKAY, if there was man already evolving here on Earth...
WHAT IF the visiting aliens found that they were genetically close enough to cohabit and reproduce with the Terra life form already here. Would that not help to explain the different Races here on Earth? Also, the fact that Earth's Scientist recently realized that both Cro-Magnum and Neanderthal Man coexisted rather than lived thousands of years apart?

IF ANCIENT MAN WAS visited on Earth by Aliens, a superior being from the Heavens....what would ancient man think of this being? He would make him a GOD!

[ceehound619]

Rosie Odonnell is proof that human kind evolved from monkeys.

[Big Ozzie]

Rosie Odonnell is proof that human kind evolved from monkeys.

WTF, man! That ain't right!!!
What did Monkey's ever do to you?

[ceehound619]

WTF, man! That ain't right!!!
What did Monkey's ever do to you?
hmmm er... good point. :1orglaugh:

[psycho_terror]

Just pray for the Swede - I'm ok thanks. :omg:

our turnip, who art in sweetness,
hallowed be thy gravy.

http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/73/63/23316373.jpg

i hope he'll be ok, he has so much to live for.

[jaba]

Evolution.

'Religion is the opium of the people' Marx :omg:

'Opium is the religion of the people' Jaba :D

[MightyTiny]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS]I do believe in evolution....and yet, I still believe that there is a supreme or superior being.
Is that so bad?
Living a "Godly" existence and being a Good person is not that bad. Perhaps when I die, my body will be consumed by the Earth and all evidence of me ever existing will disappear forever into oblivion.
If that is true, did I live a good life in vain? I say no. Because to do some good to and for people will in a way give me immortality.

:xyxthumbs:

Wow, Ozzie - that's wise outlook. That reminded me of something that I read once in a Buddhist text (who's name, I'm sad to say, I've forgotten), which essentially put ethics into very simple and elegant terms, explaining very succinctly why it makes sense to live a good life regardless of whether you believe in God or not, or re-incarnation, or not.

I do not believe in the existence of god or gods, nor do I believe in the supernatural, or an afterlife, but I do believe in living a good life, and being good towards other people. In a way, my world view would be pretty empty if I didn't - the only immortality that I can aspire to is in the contribution I make in my life to humanity and the world; the ripples I leave behind.


AND IF THERE IS A GOD, he gave me the ability to question and wonder why and how things are. And perhaps in his/her infinite wisdom, he will forgive me for questioning how and why I came to be.


If I did believe in a god, I certainly wouldn't believe in one that gave us the ability to reason, an insatiable curiosity, placed us in a beautiful and complex universe with a wealth of discoveries to be made, and then required us to stifle that curiosity, and leave that beauty undiscovered. :omg: So perhaps the question should be; would god forgive you for NOT questioning how and why you came to be?


AS FAR AS the Alien thing is concerned.....is it that "far out there"?
To deny the possibility of extraterrestrial life would be even more foolish than what you claim Christians are.
There are so many Universes and Galaxies out there, with most yet to be discovered. To think that this planet is the only one to produce life forms is absurd!


And I don't think anyone is making such a silly claim - it is a strawman caricature of the position of people who don't believe in UFO's, that they'd be claiming that there's no life out there other than us Earthlings. Believing that there's other life - even intelligent life - out there is a whole different belief from the belief that that intelligent life has visited us.

Further, while I would agree that there probably are many Universes, that is far from known - many solar systems and many galaxies, for sure, but if there are more than one Universe, then if we ever can confirm that, that knowledge will not allow us contact with those other universes; they'll be either separated by insane distances, or exist entirely separate of our own three dimensional world.


WHERE DID GOD come from? Where does he live? In almost any Religion the member will point to the sky or say "In Heaven".
Where is Heaven, but up in space. There are numerous accounts in history where people have reported alien beings visiting the Earth.


...unfortunately none that wouldn't have more likely, terrestrial explanations and interpretations. The literature on UFOs and visitation claims is marred with pseudoscience, and with a greater desire to see evidence of alien activity, than the evidence, objectively, warrants.


There are too many unanswered questions like "How'd they do that and Why?" with ancient civilizations on Earth. The Pyramids, the Nazca Plains, Easter Island, Stone Henge...the list goes on. Why and How would man have the knowledge to build massive pyramids, create celestial clocks before the invention of telescopes and a myriad of other things...then lose this knowledge.


And this is largely why I think those claims are somewhat demeaning - they grossly underestimate human ingenuity, and make out our ancestors of just thousands of years ago to be dumb-asses that could not have achieved anything notable on their own.

As to why such constructions? Why, because of religion, of course! And the desire of despots to see their handiwork survive to perpetuity! We can see such construction of gigantic symbols even today, in nations led by despots. even when the people suffer from hunger and poverty, that does not prevent despots from diverting huge funds towards building monuments.

Religion too has been the motivation for building great monuments, even at great expense of time and resources: it is seen as sacrifice to the deities that people worship.

That is the one thing that isn't mysterious at all - why people would build the pyramids or great monuments - no need to invoke extraterrestrials there. :eek7:

Second, as to how - imagine this hypothetical scenario:

Three thousand years into the future, in the year 5007, with everybody having been seduced by the great entertainment value of FileCabi.net, most of the actual work has been delegated to automated systems, giving people more time to spend with the future incarnations of FileCabi.net, based on technology we can't even fathom at the moment.

Now some people decide that perhaps it'd be time to do something else for a while. :omg: So they turn to investigating their past, and find that the incredibly primitive time three thousand years ago, when FileCabi.net was in it's infancy, was preceded by a sudden jump in knowledge and technological skill, from Ultra-Primitive times in a historical eye blink - moving from horse and carriage, to the car, supersonic jets, space ships, and the FileCabi.net!

Now wouldn't a future Ozzie, in the year 5007, argue that surely that kind of an explosion in knowledge and technology can only be explained by aliens having visited the Earth, and handed down the knowledge to poor hapless people?

And wouldn't that be unfair to the very real people who's ingenuity drove the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, and the birth of the information age?

I think it is all too easy to place goblins and ghosts to places where our ignorance lies - or now, in the modern times, aliens.


Even in the Evolutionary process here on Earth, there is still that "missing link" between Modern Man and his prehistoric relatives.
Allister, you posted a series of pictures in the other thread that showed the progression of man in evolution. Even with all of your Internet surfing, you could not fill in that missing space.


Actually, the "missing link" is something that must exist for ever, in any sequence of fossils, for the simple fact that only a tiny proportion of all animals that ever live, fossilize. We have a remarkably smooth transition from an ape-like ancestor to a modern human, in the fossil record, but of course you could always have a MORE complete one: there's no particular gap there that is conspicuously missing something; the "missing link" is largely a myth blown out of proportion, and taken without understanding the context, by the creationist movement.

to be continued...

[MightyTiny]

....


OK, so you admit that there is a huge possibility that there is intelligent life on other planets.
WHAT IF....now only "what if" they were more advanced then man is now and visited this planet thousands of years ago.


First, I believe that life itself is most probably very, very common - I believe this because of many things, but mostly because life emerged on Earth pretty much the first moment the conditions stopped being ultra-hostile to life. I think the emergence of life is probably a surprisingly likely event.

However, for billions of years, nothing but basic bacterial life existed on Earth! It took billions of years for multicellular life to emerge, and hundreds of millions of years before one species achieved intelligence great enough to trigger a the evolution of technology. We've arrived on the scene very close to the retirement age of the Earth, with there being only about 500 million years left before the conditions on Earth will become inhospitable to complex life.

Now with only one example, we have no way of estimating the true likelihood of multicellular life arising from simple life, but because it took such an immense span of time on Earth, we can be pretty sure that that event is astronomically unlikely, we just don't know how likely. It may be that it was a fluke that it took "only" some billions of years on Earth to occur - it may be that it requires an event which occurs, on an Earth-like-planet, on average, every 1000 billion years, and we just got lucky.

If that is the case, then most planets hospitable to life would never reach that point, before their sun died, and all life was extinguished. That would mean that while life would be very common, complex life bigger than microscopic organisms, would be exceedingly rare.

And that doesn't even yet bring us to intelligence: we don't know how big of a fluke it was that one of the species became intelligent enough to develop technology and science! We only knew that it took hundreds of millions of years to occur in ONE species, out of millions of potential candidates.

So, it may well be that out of that tiny proportion of worlds with complex multicellular life, only a tiny proportion ever produces an intelligent species.

To add more uncertainty, we do not know how big a proportion of intelligent species end up killing themselves off, through war or environmental collapse, or through an asteroid hit, or some other cosmic danger, before ever having the chance to leave their planet to possibly colonize other solar systems. It may be that only a tiny percentage of intelligent species reach that point.

Then there is the huge expanses of space, and the huge distances - what proportion of space faring species ever develop technology that would allow them to explore more than, at most, the stars closest to them?

And further, it isn't improbable, in the light of what we know of the laws of physics now, prevent any realistic way of exploring very far from the star system we call home. We don't even know if the necessary physics exist to allow "star-treck" like exploration!

With all these hurdles and unknowns, I find it very, very, unlikely that an intelligent species would have found us, and visited us - only to mess with some cows, draw circles in crop, and mess with the genitals of people. :omg:


OKAY, if there was man already evolving here on Earth...
WHAT IF the visiting aliens found that they were genetically close enough to cohabit and reproduce with the Terra life form already here. Would that not help to explain the different Races here on Earth?


I don't think you realize how astronomically unlikely it would be that two unrelated species would be compatible enough to produce offspring.

There's no reason to assume that even the basic chemical components used in the bodies of aliens would be the same as the chemical components used by species on Earth! Further, life on Earth, the biology of our cells, the history of it's development, has included many frozen accidents, many things that are one way, and could be in a billion different ways instead.

To find that an alien species would be even as close to us genetically, as we are to bananas, would be a stroke of luck comparable to winning the lottery a hundred times in a row, while bowling perfect 300 games every weekend on bowling night, and receiving a perfect hand of bridge on your weekly bridge night, for the rest of your life. :omg:

So, sorry to shoot this one down, but no, it's not even remotely plausible.


Also, the fact that Earth's Scientist recently realized that both Cro-Magnum and Neanderthal Man coexisted rather than lived thousands of years apart?


That's not unexpected at all! Nor is it problematic to evolution. Fossils don't announce "I'm your direct ancestor", and indeed, it is statistically unlikely that any fossil found is of that particular line that led to modern humans - more likely the fossils we find are close cousins of our ancestral line, off-shoots destined for extinction, of the line that led to humans. As such, they are anatomically very similar to what our ancestors were like (like you are anatomically similar to your cousin, and he'd be, if he fossilized, a good representative of what an ancestor looked like to an scientist finding the fossil a million years from now, even if your cousin's line is destined to die out, while you are destined to become the ancestor to all humanity)

[jaba]

There ya go Ozzie! :D
You have been told.

[Red/Yellow]

Wow! That's a large number you pulled out of your ass. Would you mind backing that up with some facts. I've already looked for the real number, and the closest I came was around fifty (no exact figures).

As to the topic of this thread, I don't see where evolution is a help or hindrance to Christianity. I don't have to believe evolution is anymore real than the Genesis story. Honestly, I don't care.:drinkup:

Oh well, sorry for pulling figures out of my ass, it is actually around 38,000. I am incredibly sorry for such a poor use of statistics to back my point.




http://christianity.about.com/od/denominations/p/christiantoday.htm

[Big Ozzie]

Yep...been told.
When the space ship comes and I leave Earth, I'll wave to you.
Make sure that you wave back! :40:

[MightyTiny]

Yep...been told.
When the space ship comes and I leave Earth, I'll wave to you.
Make sure that you wave back! :40:

Will do! :xyxthumbs: :1orglaugh:

[Snuff.]

Also, in regards to how Stonehenge and the pyramids etc. were built, check it:

lRRDzFROMx0

It`s entirely feasible.

[MightyTiny]

Also, in regards to how Stonehenge and the pyramids etc. were built, check it:

lRRDzFROMx0

It`s entirely feasible.

Very cool! :xyxthumbs:

And all it took was one clever fella. Though, of course, he might have been an alien. :omg:

:1bluewinky:

[footballbat]

Oh well, sorry for pulling figures out of my ass, it is actually around 38,000. I am incredibly sorry for such a poor use of statistics to back my point.




http://christianity.about.com/od/denominations/p/christiantoday.htm

That link takes you to this link http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globalchristianity/resources.php
What was the methodology of the study? Did they count non-denominational Christian churches separately? I still think that's a highly over-inflated statistic. I looked all over that site for the answer to what determines a denomination in their eyes. I could get the answer, if only.... I'd buy a book from them.

[Raidenator]

Damn, I was forced out of the discussion. I can't get in now! I feel like a mime in a box.

[Big Ozzie]

Also, in regards to how Stonehenge and the pyramids etc. were built, check it:

lRRDzFROMx0

It`s entirely feasible.


OMG!
What a Nutter!
Why do all that work when all he had to do was rent a Big Backhoe or Bulldozer!!
Better yet, build the forms for the concrete in place and pour it standing up!
Geeez!http://msn.mess.be/data/thumbnails/41/smile-2.jpg

[Red/Yellow]

That link takes you to this link http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globalchristianity/resources.php
What was the methodology of the study? Did they count non-denominational Christian churches separately? I still think that's a highly over-inflated statistic. I looked all over that site for the answer to what determines a denomination in their eyes. I could get the answer, if only.... I'd buy a book from them.


Well I guess even if it did come to around 50 (according to you), it would still be far from providing a single uniform interpretation.

[Cheb]

You can be a religious person and still believe in evolution. I myself believe in evolution and believe that we have a creator. Evolution is necessary for us to survive the changing world. Animals have evolved for millions of years. Humans have evolved since their existence on earth. In fact I believe some of the Dinosaurs have evolved to the modern day birds. All this is God's way of ensuring that life, mainly human life, will exist until judgment day.

Edit: I havn't actually read every reply on this thread by the way.

[Big Ozzie]

Great Post, Cheb! ^^^^