By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - General - Why can't some Christians accept Evolution?

Andrespetmonkey said:
mrstickball said:
About 60% of Christians do believe in some form of evolution. Its becoming more prevalent in most areas. The core issues Christians have with evolution is that it does conflict in that the most ardent supporters of evolution use it as a bludgeon to push atheism on others. Guys like Richard Dawkins turn off a lot of people in the same way that Ken Ham does.

Personally, I teach the kids in my youth group to research the issue and come to their own conclusions. We're actually doing a series on creationism and evolution, and I'm simply offering them understanding on all the various theories out there, adding scripture, and letting them decide which one is the most accurate.


But creationism isn't a scientific theory. I don't think you should give it the same status as evolution, because creationism is not anywhere near being a scientific theory.

Same goes for both literal creation and intelligent design.


Its my responsibility to also teach them critical thinking in regards to what the Bible says in regards to the creation of the universe. I am not going to remove parts of the Bible because science says otherwise. Additionally, I never said creationism was a theory. Actually, in the study, I only referred to evolution as a theory, and left no such adjective for creationist ideas.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

Around the Network
PDF said:
I believe God does things scientifically. A day to God could be a million years our time. Which better fits the theory of evolution and the creation of the earth and its species.

Thats the conclusion I came to. If God created the universe through the Big Bang, then according to Einstein's theory of special relativity, the amount of time to us as a day then would be vastly different than it is today. The Bible itself even says that a thousand years is as a day to God - thus denoting the special temporal relationship of God to the universe.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

You said Christian's, I'm Christian and I can accept evolution .



MaulerX said:
But isn't the theory of evolution.....a theory? Until this very day scientists have not been able to prove with any type of certainty that evolution is what got us from ape to human, even though that's exactly what they're pitching. And to be honest, there are plenty of non Christians that don't believe in evolution for that very reason. A theory is a theory.

Theory (the scientific word) bears very little relvance to the word theory, as it is used colloquially. The difference between a theory and a law, in scientific terms, has nothing to do with how confident we are that it is true. The site below can explain it better than me, but the tl;dr version is that every time someone says the theory of evolution is just a theory, and tries to use that to imply there is doubt, a sicentist turns in his grave.

 

http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistry101/a/lawtheory.htm



My question is why are you so quick to point your finger at Christians? You are aware that the most popular religions all believe in Adam and Eve.....arent you? Lets be clear, the story of God creating the Earth and everything with it is from the JEWISH bible! Later some Jews followed Christ and became Christians, but that doesnt change the fact that it is the Jews who believe in creation. As well the Muslims also believe in Adam and Eve being the first people and starting humanity. So before you start your thread in order to get hits, please study what you are writing about. You would see that lots of Christians believe in evolution, Jews cannot believe that because it isn't in their bible (old testament). Can you even explain why you would choose to call out a religon that has less belief in creation than another religon?



                                  Gaming Away Life Since 1985


Around the Network

I'm not a Christian and I don't believe in evolution.



Andrespetmonkey said:
mhsillen said:
I look at it that the creator is a powerful scientific being. He is not some mystical being. He uses scientific laws to create and if it was the big bang he used then so be it. But whatever you believe it is never wise to ignore other ideas contrary to your beliefs. It is not absurd to look at living things and think these are so complicated it must of been planned and built by a intelligent being.

It sounds like the sharks are adapting not turning into geese. Adaptation happens all the time.

Liked your post until I read that, makes you sound a little ignorant. You have to consider those small adaptions accumulating over the space of billions of years.  And even if you personally can't visualize it, it's been well supported by the fossil record and confirmed by DNA sequencing. Not specifically "sharks turning into geese" ofcourse but macro-evolution as a whole.

Everyone gets this point.

But sir, if science is so advanced then why won't a pumpkin ever go past a certain size (both ways) ? Why does artificial selection always hit a breaking point (fruit fly experiments etc.)? And don't tell me that in the future someone will come and breed a functional advantage... I want to see a new biological device built from the ground up through random changes - I really do.



mrstickball said:
Andrespetmonkey said:
mrstickball said:
About 60% of Christians do believe in some form of evolution. Its becoming more prevalent in most areas. The core issues Christians have with evolution is that it does conflict in that the most ardent supporters of evolution use it as a bludgeon to push atheism on others. Guys like Richard Dawkins turn off a lot of people in the same way that Ken Ham does.

Personally, I teach the kids in my youth group to research the issue and come to their own conclusions. We're actually doing a series on creationism and evolution, and I'm simply offering them understanding on all the various theories out there, adding scripture, and letting them decide which one is the most accurate.


But creationism isn't a scientific theory. I don't think you should give it the same status as evolution, because creationism is not anywhere near being a scientific theory.

Same goes for both literal creation and intelligent design.


Its my responsibility to also teach them critical thinking in regards to what the Bible says in regards to the creation of the universe. I am not going to remove parts of the Bible because science says otherwise. Additionally, I never said creationism was a theory. Actually, in the study, I only referred to evolution as a theory, and left no such adjective for creationist ideas.

Oh ok, is just came across like that in the place I bolded.



Dr.Grass said:
Andrespetmonkey said:
mhsillen said:
I look at it that the creator is a powerful scientific being. He is not some mystical being. He uses scientific laws to create and if it was the big bang he used then so be it. But whatever you believe it is never wise to ignore other ideas contrary to your beliefs. It is not absurd to look at living things and think these are so complicated it must of been planned and built by a intelligent being.

It sounds like the sharks are adapting not turning into geese. Adaptation happens all the time.

Liked your post until I read that, makes you sound a little ignorant. You have to consider those small adaptions accumulating over the space of billions of years.  And even if you personally can't visualize it, it's been well supported by the fossil record and confirmed by DNA sequencing. Not specifically "sharks turning into geese" ofcourse but macro-evolution as a whole.

Everyone gets this point.

But sir, if science is so advanced then why won't a pumpkin ever go past a certain size (both ways) ? Why does artificial selection always hit a breaking point (fruit fly experiments etc.)? And don't tell me that in the future someone will come and breed a functional advantage... I want to see a new biological device built from the ground up through random changes - I really do.

No, not everyone gets this point actually.

The fact that you're on a computer shows you how incredibly advanced science is, but that's besides the point. "Always hit a breaking point", and you base this on the fruit fly experiments? Even with the rapidly evolving fruit flys macro-evolution would still take thousands of years instead of millions, and that's only if those severe and rapid adaptions are needed. So what is this breaking point? And it's also your job to now explain all the other evidence for macro-evolution, like the high shared similarity of DNA in all animals, the clear pattern shown in the fossil record (If your gonna give me "gaps in the fossil record" reply then I hope you know it's been rtt) of common decent between different species. Why do we share DNA with a banana? 

"I want to see a new biological device built form the ground up through randon changes" Urgh, another misconception about evolution is that it comes down to "random changes", while chance places a large role in it, this ignores the fundemental role of natural selection. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, and this is what natural selection works with; it sorts out certain variations... "Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out. When the environment changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations are selected, leading eventually to different species. Harmful mutations usually die out quickly, so they don't interfere with the process of beneficial mutations accumulating.

Nor is abiogenesis (the origin of the first life) due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely randomly, but according to their chemical properties. In the case of carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the formation of ever more efficient replicators. The first self-replicating object didn't need to be as complex as a modern cell or even a strand of DNA. Some self-replicating molecules are not really all that complex (as organic molecules go)."



Player1x3 said:
SecondWar said:
spurgeonryan said:
maverick40 said:
Because most of them are uneducated.


Well that was your last post, so I am guessing this is why you are being banned.

Although... I think you just used the wrong word. Many Christians are educated. But that subject is kind of a taboo for some.

My Mom will not even read "The Davinci Code" because of its basic message. She is not dumb, she just does not want to let anything like that in her head. She believes the more junk you read or watch the more likely it is that you will question. For her to have faith in whatever she wants to believe, she cannot question.

That is something I find to be very porblematic for religion and religous people. If what they say is true, religion should be able to handle such a question and respond to in a way that supports its existence. The fact that religious conservatives reject questions and queries implies that they either have no favourable answer or they want to supress such questions in order to restrict free thought and make sure followers stay obidient.

So because someone doesn't have an answer to everything, its immediately considered to be flawed? By that logic, science is much more flawed than any religion, for it has more unanswered questions than any religion out there

Yes, a lot of science is flawed and a lot of it is still assumed but unproven theories (ie the Big Bang: what went bang?). The difference is science doesn't shy away from these questions but attempts to find the answers. Religion doesn't just shy away from the question, it tries to quash them completely.