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."
thank you, and you are welcome to it.
I'm not sure it CAN be usefully distilled, but please let me know if you succeed.
[Motive disclaimer: Everyone is wonderful. I have no improper motivation in posting this material.]
You have content? As far as I can see, you have asserted that the Bible is historically inerrant. A common opinion, but not one that makes any sense to me.
one point: were the synthetic theory of evolution to be faithfully developed into a sociopolitical philosophy, it would be antithetical to socialism.
socialism, in a nutshell, essentially has the artificially determined welfare of the species determining the daily lives and fates of the individuals within its population.
it also contains as a root tenet that all individuals are identical and interchangeable.
a philosophy extrapolated from evolution would have the daily lives and fates of the individuals naturally determine the status of the species they comprise.
it would also have as a central tenet that all individuals are unique, that none are precisely interchangeable, that distribution of characteristics are NOT equally distributed.
this "evolution-based" philosophy strongly resembles the the ideal of individualistic elitist meritocracy towards which capitalistic free societies aspire.
Your error has been corrected.
whether you choose to incorporate that correction into your thinking is up to you.
'CAPSLOCK FESTIVAL' PLACEMARKER
This is the third time I have corrected you. The global flood is not confirmed by archaeology and history.
But this is the religion forum. All ideas are deserving of respect.
1. How does anyone really know when that man lived/dies? carbon 12 or 14? Bah!
Radiocarbon dating, presence of now-extinct animals, artifacts, etc. are all used in dating. (One's lack of trust in radiocarbon dating does not constitute scientific data.)
2. Had the same DNA as folk LIVING TODAY...so what's the diff?
The same mtDNA implies direct descent. It also shows that the mtDNA of Noah's spouse etc. does not replace the Native American mtDNA haplogroup during that 10,000 year period.
3. China has a character in their alphabet of a boat and 8 human figures...Hmmm, why is that?
Beats me. I don't study China. Probably an interesting coincidence.
4. China, Native American Indians, and most cultures world-wide DO have a global flood story...Hmmmm, why is that?
They live near water. They have some great flood stories from New Orleans too.
What this mtDNA evidence shows is that there was no global flood. There are a lot of other lines of evidence which show the same thing. Early geologists (probably all creationists) gave up searching for evidence of a global flood about 1830.
there is no way to absolutely prove a negative.
however, there is absolutely no evidence that a global flood as described in Genesis occurred, and ample evidence that it did not.
specifically:
- there is no evidence of a worldwide inundation within the last 6000 years
- there is no evidence of a species-wide genetic bottleneck within the last 6000 years
- there is no evidence of a global inundation which submerged all land underwater at the same time EVER in the geologic column
- there IS significant evidence of continuous human habitation and continuous bloodlines extending well earlier than 6000 years ago - pre-flood, pre-genesis.
- there IS substantial evidence of a period of worldwide COASTAL inundation, as sea-levels rose several tens of meters at the end of the last Ice Age, 15,000 to 8,000 years ago - pre-flood, pre-genesis.
- there IS substantial evidence of INLAND flooding, in discrete successive waves, as the icelocked reservoirs of meltwater were catastrophically unleashed as ice-walls failed. Again, well before the "global flood" detailed in genesis. Moreover, the survival of these evidences of pre-genesis floods argues VERY strongly that the genesis-flood could NOT have happened.
that's all off the cuff.
the specialists, including those you have been casually dismissing here of late, will gladly give you detailed information if you demonstrate a will to learn.
well, with all the argumentum ad CAPSLOK that fellow set forth, i thought a "low key" response might be in order
:D
Did this EXCLUDE being a total nutcase too??? ;^)
[Motive disclaimer: Everyone is wonderful. I have no improper motivation in posting this material.]
But this is the religion forum. All ideas are deserving of respect.
And apparently, idea = any thought at all.
Big Bang = "Let their be light." Pretty easy there.
BTW, did you see my post #619?
So does Noah!
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