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."
Bwaaaaaahaaahaaaa
You may think He is a practical joker based on your assumptions of what happened in time past. Assumptions that, by the way, cannot be scientifically substantiated or repeated in an experiment under controlled conditions.
Why do you care about the answer to that question?
It is as fruitful as pondering whether or not Adam had a navel.
"Honey, have you seen my razor?"
-- Occam
"They took it to the CSI lab. They want to know who shaves the barber."
--Mrs. Occam
"Item: Friar Guillaume's razor ne'er shaved the barber,
it is much too dull."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
Glory Road
Evolutionism implies biological determinism.
A little defensive, aren't we?
I am simply making the point that, for evangelical Christians, the Bible is numero uno, and God included Creation, not evolution, in the Bible. What is the reason for this, other than he wanted us to reflect upon it?
If you don't believe the Bible is numero uno, then that's your prerogative.
Well, I'm Jewish, but I'll give it a shot: It was the point where Adam was born.
A little less glibly, the first human soul was the first along the line of human evolution, who realized "I am," thus becoming the image of God -- "I Am That I Am."
Saying otherwise is really just the flip side of "evolution leads to Naziism, yada yada..."
How do you know that God is responsible for the evidence?
Your point being...?
"the scientific evidence being absolutely unambiguous"
Really? First I've heard that.
That's Shermer for ya. A one-trick pony if there ever was one.
I completely disagree with that! Not the doubt part. That is you and many may have no doubts, and I agree or rather appreciate (with) that.
The notion that there is conflict b/n Biblical literalists and evolution probably has more to do with how one defines a "literalist."
I have met few people in this lifetime who actually have read that text, and even fewer who have read the text in the original language.
I have met none with complete understanding. I have met many who claim to have such a command.
The number 3 (Three) is nonsense in the article.
Keep being nice.
I strongly suspect the author knows that, and he knows that people who care about evidence already accept evolution. He's written this article for the people who don't think along those lines.
Fair enough. Your remark activated one of my hot buttons, which is curiosity at the cognitive dissonance of those who decry scientific knowledge while participating in an internet debate.
Examining your remarks more closely I was probably being unfair.
Really? First I've heard that.
Perhaps you haven't studied it much then.
They're setting themselves up for the fall. When lightning was not understood, it was the work of the Greek and Roman gods. Nowdays we understand how to generate electricity and so as impressive as a bolt of lightning is, there's no great mystery about it.
Similarly, as our abilities to genetically engineer things increases we will eventually be able to produce things more perfectly than anything found in nature.
This religionist view of God as genetic engineer will become silly because human engineers will do a better job. Yet it is not because they consider themselves to be god like in their powers -- but because the creationists of today are so limited in their imaginations of what power a god like being must have. Just as the ancients thought only gods could produce electricity.
Actually God did include evolution in the Bible. We've just lost the reference in the translation from Hebrew to English.
Genesis 2:7:
Then God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
The Hebrew translated as "formed" has its root in the term for a potter's work. A potter does not throw down his clay and have in instantly take the form he wants. He molds it through various intermediate forms, shaping it and reshaping it, until it reaches the shape he wants.
Therefore God, did not create man in an instant, but shaped and reshaped "the dust of the ground" until He had created man.
Which is a remarkably on-target analogy for evolution.
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