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."
well, I kinda like meatcleavers, but rapiers and knitting-needles also serve :)
And I agree completely with you...of course, I have heard some say, that evidence merely shores up their faith, that they would have faith anyway...I dont agree with that myself...
The very essence of faith, means that no evidence is required...not ever...
Well, meat cleavers are more manly...
None of them ever signed anything like the statements that the anti-evolution activist groups require. None of them gave the Bible veto power over observations of natural phenomena. Some were Christian, some were Jewish, nowadays there are scientists of practically every religious persuasion, and also atheists.
Your whole premise is flawed and says NOTHING to the FACTS that MANY SCIENTISTS;
1. Do NOT believe in Evolution NOR the Big-Bang.
2. ARE Creation Scientists/Intelligent Design supporters and pioneers
Your list of activist organizations did not demonstrate your claim. What I claimed was that anyone who would sign statements like the ones I posted is no longer doing science; you have not contested hat either.
- The Atheistic/Socialistic world-view that Evolution and it's "evil twin" the big-bang are "true" is NOT by any means proven, NOR is it even accepted by entire hosts of Scientists.
Biology and cosmology have nothing to do with each other. The debate between the Big Bang and Steady State camps had no impact whatsoever on biology.
Further there is nothing atheist about either theory, or any theory for that matter.
Beyond that, there is nothing socialistic about either one, and it is a gross insult to imply that FReepers are socialists because they agree with normal science. Please retract this slander.
NOR is it even accepted by entire hosts of Scientists.
Evolution is accepted by at least 99.7% of biologists, paleontologists and other experts on life and its history, and by over 95% of all scientists.
- The main reason that the "grandfathers" of the Evolution/Big-Bang MYTH didn't believe in Creationism/Intelligent Design were MORAL reasons, i.e. they did NOT want to be ACCOUNTABLE to that "Higher Power"/GOD.
Please retract and apologize for this disgusting slander.
His name was Emmanuel?!
I'd say it's as effective in any forum. Think of the possibilities: in Parliament, it's against the rules to call an MP a liar, so Winston Churchill said his opponent was practicing "terminological inexactitude".
Although meat cleavers have their place....
Oh, I love it..a polite way to call someone a liar...someone is practicing 'terminological inexactitude'....quite brilliant...
I sure wouldn't want to debate Churchill!
Indeed...in this case, the tongue would be mightier than the sword...
There is a new player among us.
Among you, more specifically.
Several on our side of the aisle find it difficult to believe this new poster is exactly what he appears to be.
I suspect this questionable and nominally creationist entity is in reality a particularly sarcastic pro-evolution* agent posting an ongoing parody of creationist apologetics.
*(or, quite possibly, simply an anti-christian DU-type/infiltrator -a real example of what so many creationistic FReepers falsely accuse conservative pro-evolution FReepers of being- though the proper spelling seems to argue against it being a DUmmy...)
The problem, of course, is that -even if this is so- the REAL creationists are not calling the poster in question on any of the inaccuracies that we know THEY KNOW are inaccuracies.
No matter how you slice it, this entity's unimpeded performance is casting a baleful glare all across the creationist coalition's rule of Omerta and groupthink solidarity.
That's an effect you might wish to consider as the interminable Luddite War drags on.
What I was taught, growing up, was that miracles were physically possible. What makes the events miracles weren't that they happened, but that they happened at the right time to be useful.
OTOH, the cantor who taught me that, was talking about the Ten Plagues and Flight out of Egypt. I'm not sure how he handled the Flood.
The Flood is a piece of cake compared to the missing DNA evidence of a mass near extinction.
it never fails to make an impression, how certain cheerleaders cannot seem to resist the urge to cast their criticism in personal slurs.
From what I understand, there was a near-mass extinction, only about 75,000 years ago (if you go with the Toba super-volcano eruption being the cause) and with several thousand humans surviving.
It would not surprise me if the story of Noah and similar stories to that in almost every mythology is an long-remembered account of that disaster. Considering the massive geologic dislocation and the impact on the weather, it would have seemed that the whole world was suffering a great disaster. Indeed, their entire world was, most likely blotted out.
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