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."
"Uproar", eh? You have severe category problems if you think hijacking a discussion about science into a religious forum goes any signifigant distance toward making evolutionary theory not a science.
Like what? The Bible declares that man and woman were specially created by God. What evidence do you have that this wasn't the case? (And don't trot out diagrams proporting to show horse evolution, because I'm asking about mankind.)
As a product of the public school system, and four years of college at the University of California, I can assure you that I've studied evolutionary science. I got A's in biology and physical anthropology. It was after I received my degree that I began to realize that most of Darwinist conclusions were a huge loaf of baloney. I understand the "evidence" for evolution better than you assume. I may even understand it better than you.
Methodological naturalism does not get an upper hand on the Religion Forum, it gets an even hand.
All the more reason why topics dealing with science should never be placed in the religion forum. The arguments against science generate heat and shed no light.
As David Berlinski has pointed out,
“The term ‘Darwinism’ conveys the suggestion of a secular ideology, a global system of belief. So it does and so it surely is. Darwin’s theory has been variously used – by Darwinian biologists – to explain the development of a bipedal gait, the tendency to laugh when amused, obesity, anorexia nervosa, business negotiations, a preference for tropical landscapes, the evolutionary roots of political rhetoric, maternal love, infanticide, clan formation, marriage, divorce, certain comical sounds, funeral rites, the formation of regular verb forms, altruism, homosexuality, feminism, greed, romantic love, jealousy, warfare, monogamy, polygamy, adultery, the fact that men are pigs, recursion, sexual display, abstract art, and religious beliefs of every description.”
One of the problems with Darwinism is that it is assumed to be true (and it's assumed to be true because the alternative -- special creation by God -- is unacceptable for materialistic scientists), and based upon this assumption, a variety of conclusions are made about a variety of topics, as Berlinski has listed. The problem is that if the assumption is wrong, then pretty much all of these conclusions are wrong as well, and the great body of scientific literature you appeal to is far from infallible.
See post 572.
And yes, I did investigate the websites provided.
Consider the topic of this thread -- that evolution is consistent with Christianity and with conservative philosophy. As a Christian (I assume you're not one), and as a conservative, I can assure you that the premise of the article is false.
Here is where it gets sticky. "Whose truth" and or "what is truth" comes to mind. Since science does not deal in "truth" just observed evidence, treating science at the same level as a faith based "truth" is disingenuous at best.
This is why science should not be classed as a religion nor a science thread be placed in the religion forum.
Well said! And that's precisely why a science thread doesn't belong in the religion forum. (Don't bother putting this one back in "news," as it's pretty well run its course anyway.)
And that's also why -- aside from professions of faith -- a totally anti-science poster is sometimes disruptive in a news thread about science. You will note that freepers with a scientific viewpoint rarely go into the religion forum to cause trouble. The disruptive traffic is all one-way. And that's why there are times -- you can spot them -- when someone should be told to get off a thread. Disruptive behavior shouldn't be allowed, regardless of the motivation.
It is the non-participating audience that sparks the annoyance, on my part, at least. Taking it out of the science forum burys it out of site of its hoped for audience.
How is that any different than saying:
My faith tells me that an all-powerfulGodInvisible, Pink Unicorn created man and woman in a special act of creation.
or even:
My faith tells me that an all-powerfulGodFlying Spaghetti Monster created man and woman in a special act of creation.
Or perhaps:
My faith tells me that an all-powerfulGodDread Cthulhu created man and woman in a special act of creation.
How does one distinguish between such innumerable possibilites without the use of evidence, reason, or the tenets of methodolocial naturalism?
No. That is according to my mere mortal understanding of what the Almighty said and did.
Why is it man feels he knows more than His Creator?
I could ask you the same thing. I have one understanding of God's word. You have another. Why should either of ourselves declare ourselves wise enough to be certain we are correct?
Not true. “Deities” is the proper term since there are many different faiths out there that address such. Evolution does not address deities no matter what name(s) you give just one or many.
Evolution does not alienate God as you state. Evolution does not address God either for or against. This is no different than the theory of gravity. God is not addressed. Yet we don't see these types of arguments over the theory of gravity.
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