Posted on 09/18/2006 1:51:27 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
According to a 2005 Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of evangelical Christians believe that living beings have always existed in their present form, compared with 32 percent of Protestants and 31 percent of Catholics. Politically, 60 percent of Republicans are creationists, whereas only 11 percent accept evolution, compared with 29 percent of Democrats who are creationists and 44 percent who accept evolution. A 2005 Harris Poll found that 63 percent of liberals but only 37 percent of conservatives believe that humans and apes have a common ancestry. What these figures confirm for us is that there are religious and political reasons for rejecting evolution. Can one be a conservative Christian and a Darwinian? Yes. Here's how.
1. Evolution fits well with good theology. Christians believe in an omniscient and omnipotent God. What difference does it make when God created the universe--10,000 years ago or 10,000,000,000 years ago? The glory of the creation commands reverence regardless of how many zeroes in the date. And what difference does it make how God created life--spoken word or natural forces? The grandeur of life's complexity elicits awe regardless of what creative processes were employed. Christians (indeed, all faiths) should embrace modern science for what it has done to reveal the magnificence of the divine in a depth and detail unmatched by ancient texts.
2. Creationism is bad theology. The watchmaker God of intelligent-design creationism is delimited to being a garage tinkerer piecing together life out of available parts. This God is just a genetic engineer slightly more advanced than we are. An omniscient and omnipotent God must be above such humanlike constraints. As Protestant theologian Langdon Gilkey wrote, "The Christian idea, far from merely representing a primitive anthropomorphic projection of human art upon the cosmos, systematically repudiates all direct analogy from human art." Calling God a watchmaker is belittling.
3. Evolution explains original sin and the Christian model of human nature. As a social primate, we evolved within-group amity and between-group enmity. By nature, then, we are cooperative and competitive, altruistic and selfish, greedy and generous, peaceful and bellicose; in short, good and evil. Moral codes and a society based on the rule of law are necessary to accentuate the positive and attenuate the negative sides of our evolved nature.
4. Evolution explains family values. The following characteristics are the foundation of families and societies and are shared by humans and other social mammals: attachment and bonding, cooperation and reciprocity, sympathy and empathy, conflict resolution, community concern and reputation anxiety, and response to group social norms. As a social primate species, we evolved morality to enhance the survival of both family and community. Subsequently, religions designed moral codes based on our evolved moral natures.
5. Evolution accounts for specific Christian moral precepts. Much of Christian morality has to do with human relationships, most notably truth telling and marital fidelity, because the violation of these principles causes a severe breakdown in trust, which is the foundation of family and community. Evolution describes how we developed into pair-bonded primates and how adultery violates trust. Likewise, truth telling is vital for trust in our society, so lying is a sin.
6. Evolution explains conservative free-market economics. Charles Darwin's "natural selection" is precisely parallel to Adam Smith's "invisible hand." Darwin showed how complex design and ecological balance were unintended consequences of competition among individual organisms. Smith showed how national wealth and social harmony were unintended consequences of competition among individual people. Nature's economy mirrors society's economy. Both are designed from the bottom up, not the top down.
Because the theory of evolution provides a scientific foundation for the core values shared by most Christians and conservatives, it should be embraced. The senseless conflict between science and religion must end now, or else, as the Book of Proverbs (11:29) warned: "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."
You really have no clue what evolution is. I would suggest starting with:
http://www.talkorigins.org/
http://www.pandasthumb.org/
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm
And when you get done really looking and learning (we will see you in a few years), get back to us with a meaningful rebuttal.
What about the Israeli Neanderthal skeletons?
What about the Spanish Neanderthal skeletons?
What about the Iraqi Neanderthal skeletons?
What about the Yugoslavian Neanderthal skeletons?
What about the Chinese Neanderthal skeletons?
What about the Javanese Neanderthal skeletons?
Those 70 year old arthritic Frenchmen sure got around.
Does the Bible claim the world perished in a flood and only eight peeople suevived?
Oops: people survived.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!
- There is NOTHING in the fossil record that supports evolution.
Then why were naturalists before Darwin theorizing about evolution? you know, Lamarck, Buffon, et al?
What do you think of Archeopteryx? Of the detailed reptile-to-mammal series? Of Hyracotherium (aka Eohippus), Orohippus, Epihippus, Mesohippus, etc etc in the equid lineage? How come the ToE told the discoverers of Tiktaalik where to dig? Damn lucky find if the theory's false!
- There is NO DNA evidence that supports evolution.
Then how come you have the exact same genetic defect as a chimp and a gorilla, the one that prevents synthesis of ascorbic acid (Vitami C)?
- There are NO "Missing Links" that support evolution.
No, the missing ones don't support anything. What about Aracheopteryx, again?
- There is absolutely NOTHING of SCIENCE, COMMON-SENSE and the actual historical record that supports evolution.
See above
- Evolution is a HOAX!
A very lucky one, since it's withstood a lot of attacks since 1859, and is now better-supported than it was then
- "Java man", "Piltdown Man", "Nebraska Man" are all deliberate, cooked-up HOAXES usuing either ape's teeth and a hog's jaw-bone or vice-versa.
Piltdown was an actual hoax. Java is a specimen of Homo erectus; there's nothing fake or wrong about it at all. Nebraska was a mistake that was corected within a couple of years. BFD
- "Neanderthal Man" was a 70 tear old man from France who suffered from crippling arthuritis who lived in the 1880's.
This could use a citation, especially now that some of Neandertal's DNA has being sequenced. Not H. sapiens.
Bats are mammals
It would also be obvious to God that insects have six legs, not four
Once again, that's because "insect" is a classification of animal that we humans have devised.
The quote from Leviticus specifically mentions locusts and/or grasshoppers. All known species of locust or grasshopper have six legs, as do all other insects.
A Buffoon is merely a mispelled Faggott. A Contra-Buffoon is bigger. (Just Needling, as Buffon described.)
Well, yes. And the Bible also "claims" that there were once "trees" that produced fruit capable of imparting the knowledge of good and evil and eternal life.
Are there any allegorical lessons to be gleaned from the the story surrounding these "trees"? Any theological significance to them or to Genesis 3? Or is the Bible just mundanely cataloging a few selected "facts" from the "early days"?
Similarly, is there any allegorical lesson to be learned from the story surrounding Noah? Any moral or theological significance to the tale? Or is it just a yellowing newspaper article from a long time ago?
There is certainly a long tradition in Christian thought regarding the Ark as an allegory of salvation, a tradition that accepts the tale as having continuing metaphoric significance.
Metaphor, parable, and allegory are very powerful literary and theological tools. They are what inspire contemplation and understanding of God, and they are the very backbone of both the Old and New Testaments and the teachings of Christ. To denigrate them, or to substitute illogical literalism for them, is to render the Bible simply a dusty old newspaper, phone book or half-baked atlas.
Matthew 5:33-48
33. "Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, `Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.'
34. But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne;
35. or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.
36. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black.
37. Simply let your `Yes' be `Yes,' and your `No,' `No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
38. "You have heard that it was said, `Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'
39. But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
41. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
42. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
43. "You have heard that it was said, `Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
44. But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45. that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
46. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
47. And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
48. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
And the Bible also claims there is a literal heaven. Perhaps it is "just" as "true" as Noah's ark, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life.
Salvation? From what? Evolving? Determinism?
Observation.
Yes, He is. You have to use your mind to do all those things He's requesting. That takes effort and rational thought. It is something to strive for.
There is only one statement out of all of these that is factually correct.
"It would also be obvious to God ... rabbits do not chew their cud."
That assumes that "rabbit" is an adequate translation of arnebeth in Lev. 11:5, a conclusion I am not willing to grant.
If you have to argue semantics, it doesn't do a whole lot to support the notion that "every word must be interpreted literally," does it?
Factually correct placemarker
Does the Lord love insects best? They're so nice He made them twice: On Day 5 He makes "the living creatures of every kind that creep." Three verses, and 24 hours later, He makes "all kinds of creeping things of the earth."
"Creeping" is all over these last few verses of Creation. God tells His newly minted man and woman that they rule over world and its creatures, including, as the King James puts it—"every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." What a superb phrase! It's perfect for insects, terrorists, and children.
Chapter 2 Creation Story, Take 2. This is confusing. Here is an entirely different Creation, in which God uses an entirely different method and carries it out in a different order. And second Creation has a very different view about men and women than first Creation. In Chapter 1, after God has made everything else, He makes man and woman together, "in His image." Not in Chapter 2. Before he makes plants and animals, He forms man from dust and blows in his nose to vivify him. Nothing about "in His image" here. And no woman, either.
Only later, after the plants and animals have been made, does God create woman, from Adam's rib. In second Creation, the woman is made to be man's "helper." In Chapter 1 they are made equal. Why is Chapter 2 the Creation that conservatives have settled on, with woman as helpmeet? Why not first Creation?
And which was not refuted by any method accepted by most creationists. (Carbon dating, evolutionary theory.)
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