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."
What question? What is ...the concurrence between the fossil record and the origin of life...? What on earth are you talking about?
On the other half however, if Darwin's theory allows for life (other than first life) coming from non-life - then the tree is not fully connected; it is not "whole." In fact, it is not a tree at all, but a field of grass.
The evolutionary tree of life, common descent, relies on "life begets life" in order for it to be a continuum.
Further, if your side of the debate is tossing common descent off the table, then you are also allowing for first life by segments - or "kinds" as the YEC'ers would claim.
Thank you for your post!
But that is a tautology. No information is added by saying life comes from life. And common descent is just the current best interpretation of evidence. It is unrelated to biogenesis or to the dynamics of evolution.
This is particularly irksome when the original context of the "quotation" is abiogenesis, and implies that Darwin said the problem could not be studied by science -- not just "unknown," but "unknowable" on principle:
Darwin said that "life can only come from life." He never said where life came from. Neils Bohr agreed, saying the origin of life is simply unknowable -- not just "unknown," but "unknowable" on principle -- and thus could never be a proper subject for scientific investigation. And Hubert Yockey agrees with both men that the origin of life is "unknowable." And yet: There Life is!
All this really boils down to for me is that the origin of life is "unknowable" on the basis of reason alone, thus scientific methodology cannot give an account for it. To get the "full picture," Spirit, faith is required: Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, but equally necessary complementarities for a proper understanding of man and the universe.
What is so maddening about this is it argues for shutting down investigation -- unknowable on principle.
This is why I continue to post here. to oppose those who would shut down science and declare certain topics off limits to research.
This goes way beyond a misquote.
Alamo-Girl, you made the following statement in your post...
"Thank you but truly an apology is not necessary. It is impossible for another mortal to offend a Christian. Nothing can happen to us unless God does it or allows it - and either way, that's fine with us because it's His will not our own that matters."
Its quite an interesting statement, especially the part of it being impossible for another mortal to offend a Christian...something for me to mull over...
Perhaps you are aware that this partly describes Darwin's agnosticism.
So basically what you have here is a false quotation that is 100 percent opposite of the written (now published) opinion of the author.
In addition, you have an interpretation of the false quotation that is precisely the opposite of the author's opinion. And completely anti-science to boot.
I'm curious how Dembski or Yockey, writing in 1904, would have judged the outcome of the two-slit experiment in physics. On first principles.
What on earth are you talking about?
Only True Christians© need apply. Your mileage may vary. Not valid in some states. Tax and licenses not included.
Darwin's agnosticism.
Indeed...that is where it gets really tricky...who is the
True Christian?
Why are we discussing Darwin's agnosticism? I don't recall it being relevant to anything I've discussed.
So far, so good.
On the other half however, if Darwin's theory allows for life (other than first life) coming from non-life - then the tree is not fully connected; it is not "whole."
You may, if you like, picture the tree floating a bit above the ground, due to lack of current information about the base. (A better image would be to have the base represented by dotted lines going to the ground, because there had to be something there.) We don't know the ultimate base of the tree, because the origin of the first life that begins the tree is unknown. But from that point forward, life begets life, and it's all descended from that common (but unknown) origin -- thus the tree diagram. We shouldn't be having such difficulty over this.
In fact, it is not a tree at all, but a field of grass.
Not at all. Unless there were multiple episodes of non-living material developing life, each leading to an independent line of descent. But then, we wouldn't be able to observe, as I believe we do, that everything seems to be related. So it's not a field of grass. Just one tree.
The evolutionary tree of life, common descent, relies on "life begets life" in order for it to be a continuum.
Yes, after the first life has begun -- and I suspect it began from non-living organic material -- all subsequent branches and twigs on the tree are begotten from earlier life.
If we're still in disagreement, please let me know where.
Now, that's just silly.
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