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."
is not the same thing as "not yet refuted empiric scientific truth".
Nothing is science is "irrefutable", (although some theories, like kinetic gas theory or the germ theory of disease or the synthetic theory of evolution are so strongly supported that it is nearly impossible to imagine them being overthrown), but all currently-accepted theories have prevailed when people tried to refute them.
Perhaps because evolution comprises irrefutable empiric scientific evidence rather than constitutes truth; other scientific evidences also exist. The search for truth is a religious endeavor, not a scientific one. All religions have found Truth. Which is available at a price.
Science seeks consensus and most likely scenarios. Religion, at least those tracing back to Abraham, demand certainty and absolute conformity to a creed.
You can see the results of the two approaches to knowledge. Scientists develop hypotheses with increasing applicability and precision, without ever finding TRVTH.
Religious people splinter into increasing fractious denominations an cults, each claiming they are the only path to heaven.
God would be a moral pervert if accurately characterized by any organized religion. a sick game player with no interest in the actual welfare of his creatures.
empirical science does not deal in proofs or truths, does not generate absolute or irrefutable models.
instead, empirical science deals in evidence, predictive and testable explanations, including falsification criteria, and is always PROVISIONAL.
despite what you have posted, this is as true for the SToE as it is for gravitational theory, tectonic theory, gas theory, aerodynamic theory, and all other well-established scientific models.
your erroneous statements have been corrected.
whether you have been corrected is your business.
This was in response to the comment you made in Post #398:
EVERY event The Bible mentions has also been verified by history and archeology.What do you think of the scientific data I posted?
the characteristics of the article which you decry do not validate a strawman understanding of the essentials of empirical science.
to imply otherwise, as you appeared to do just now, is a logical fallacy called "non-sequitur"
if you did not intend such an implication, then your post appears void of both purpose AND relevance.
(Any response to data I posted in previously?)
the Religion moderator has made it clear that we on the science side of the debate may not say precisely what we mean, as bluntly as we would like. However, despite the contorted politesse of its wording, the denotation of post #730 is quite exactly what I intended. There are several excellent online dictionaries should anyone have need of such references.
you may take whatever you fancy.
the denotation of what I stated, on the other hand, is immutable and not subject to such fickle whim.
You posted, way back in Post #398:
EVERY event The Bible mentions has also been verified by history and archeology.I posted in Post #449:
How do you explain the skeleton from On-Your-Knees-Cave in southern Alaska dated to some 10,000 years ago, which, when tested for mtDNA, had the exact same haplotype as the living local villagers?
To most folks, this suggests a continuity of occupation for some 10,000 years, with no break at 2350 BC, the most commonly cited date of the "global flood."
And, the mtDNA haplogroup is a Native American type, not one associated with the Middle East (such as Noah's spouse etc. would have had).
There are other examples of this same phenomenon from the western US if you want.
Archaeology also fails to find evidence of a flood covering the western US at 2350 BC, although a series of floods did hit eastern Washington at the end of the last ice age (google: channeled scablands). These are pretty well understood in terms of date and extent. This shows that a more recent, and far larger, flood could not have happened.
The only conclusion science can draw from this is there was no global flood.
Any comments to what I posted (and reasoned argument would be better than shouting in all caps)?
Interesting word usements.
Proof is for mathematics and whiskey. Though, not at the same time.
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