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."
Unless the science is a pseudoscience and the interpretation of the "evidence" is driven by a philosophical worldview. I think keeping a thread on evolution in the religion forum is quite appropriate.
Scripture reveals the nature of God (not an "Invisible Pink Unicorn"), and the nature of man. You apparently hate what scripture reveals, probably because it reveals a God that you owe your life to, but that's your problem, not mine, and you have until your last breath to get it sorted out.
Do you really believe that repeating a lie often enough will make it true?
Every single mechanism involved in evolution has been observed, and every biochemical mechanism necessary for evolution can be observed and studied in controlled laboratory experiments.
I challenge you to cite one aspect of evolution that is taken for granted, or which lacks dozens of independent lines of evidence.
This is why science should not be classed as a religion nor a science thread be placed in the religion forum.
Apparently science discussions can be placed in the religion forum, religion can be discussed in science threads, and science can be attacked in science threads using religion. Obviously, science is being de facto treated as a religion.
And some wonder why scientists, teachers, and many other people don't want religion in public school science classes. What we see here is the reason. What we see here is what could easily happen to science classes.
and you sent this to me... why?
Your inability to see that is disturbing, but I suppose that you have the public schools to blame for that.
I continue to wonder what is so loathsome about religion that when creationists call evolution a religion they mean it as an insult.
I was pinged to the thread, and where I entered the discussion, your post was at the top of the page. I assumed your post was #1; I didn't recognize until later that your post was actually #451. My mistake. But thanks for reposting my comments.
I guess because many Christians do not regard their beliefs to be a religion. You must have heard "Christianity is not a religion, it's a personal relationship with Jesus" speech before. :-)
As does the term "universal law of gravitation". Does that make gravitational theory not a science?
One of the problems with Darwinism is that it is assumed to be true
That is, to the most casual observer of the scientific process, obvious balderdash. Evolutionary theory undergoes a new, and potentially falsifying test every time a bulldozer scrapes into a metamorphic rock face.
(and it's assumed to be true because the alternative -- special creation by God -- is unacceptable for materialistic scientists
This is also obvious balderdash, under even the most casual of inspections. Science has no official position on creation, special or otherwise, and nothing prevents prominent biological scientists, such as Johnson, from having profound religious beliefs. It is only in the minds of biblical literalists that biology and religion are in a throwdown match for supremacy.
the great body of scientific literature you appeal to is far from infallible.
Unlike the case with unshakable religious conviction, science takes it's fallability as a cornerstone of our confidence in it. That's why we keep hiring scientists to test things. Does your local church hire skeptics to test your faith, and provide a publishing forum for them to air their suspicions?
We don't consider religion loathsome. What we consider loathsome is that evolutionists don't recognize their belief as a religion, but try to wrap their belief in the unassailable light of "science." Their dogmatism is actually an insult to science.
Everything you eat is either a species that has arisen in modern times or an animal that feeds on species that have arisen in historical times. All the grains we eat and feed to our livestock are recent mutations. They cannot survive without cultivation. They are macro-mutations. They resulted from changes in chromosome count.
Even Michael Behe acknowledges that nearly all macro-evolution can be explained by accumulation of small changes. And the one instance he insists was the result of direct intervention by God — the bacterial flagellum — is the bugger responsible for the recent contamination of spinach. Some signature of God.
You overlook the fact that there are multiple, independent, and competing versions of "scripture" out there.
You apparently hate what scripture reveals, probably because it reveals a God that you owe your life to, but that's your problem, not mine, and you have until your last breath to get it sorted out.
Aw, how cute.
But the Religion Moderator has already berated us all to "don't get personal".
Perhaps some people have a problem reading and/or understanding even the simplest of the Forum Rules ... I'll pray drink a brew to the Flying Spaghetti Monster to overlook their trangressions.
I continue to wonder what is so loathsome about religion that when creationists call evolution a religion they mean it as an insult.
It's also a wonderment how they try to say they aren't saying science is a religion when they say evolution is a religion, when much of evidence for evolution comes from physics, genetics, geology, etc. I guess they think know better what is and is not science than the 99+% of scientists who consider evolution science.
A personal relationship with Jesus does not impel spouting nonsense. In fact, it suggests no political or intellectual action at all. Just treating other people with love and respect.
Because a scientific theory is not a religion. As I stated earlier in the thread, belief has nothing to do with it. Observed evidence leading to a model does.
Therefore, evolution is not a belief, a faith, or a "truth" as described by religion.
Sure.
if A has B
and
and B is a suggestion that being in a particular
discussion forum actually means diddly w/respect to
the truth value of an idea, either in actuality, or in any evolutionists mind
then
A is confusing a thing with a label of a thing.
and
confusing a thing with a label of a thing, is a
category error
Q.E.D
- along with your 'hijacking' word theory.
"Prove" my use of a word? Ok, I'll play--if the originator of a thread puts it in one forum, and someone else puts it in another forum where, to the casual average observer, it would not obviously belong, where you have to sort of wiggle and twist to try to claim that said placement doesn't fortify the position of one side of an argument in said thread, then the thread can reasonably be said to be hijacked.
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