Does evolution have any affect on your spirituality?

[Guy Threepwood]

I'm sure you are convinced you are right about evolution. I am just as convinced I am right. Just as you feel I am being misinformed and misled, I feel that you are being misinformed and misled. I find it strange you believe God caused all life, including man, to arise from lower life forms. I find evolution incompatible with a Creator who has a purpose for mankind.

It's an odd position; that God created all the excruciatingly precise engineering to make life possible, then left the result up to blind chance- with no particular plan. And so the result of a single sentient species in millions, able to appreciate the universe and deduce it's creator... just a bizarre coincidence?!

I think the problem there is leaving science to 'scientists', instead of evidence

 

[Skwim]

When I consider evolution my spirits soar. Does that count?

 

[james bond]

no, nor does astrology, global warming, bigfoot, or UFOs.

Out of these, what have you invested time in? For example, when I was in middle school and delivering papers early in the evening, I swore I saw a UFO. It looked like a small saucer shaped disc in the far distance towards a bright morning sun. It wasn't easy to look at as the sun was near and bright, but I stopped folding papers and watched as it was very fast and it zigged and zagged out of my sight. It probably lasted less than a second, but I thought it was longer than that. If another boy was with me, then I would have said something to him. Another time, I saw something similar traveling in a car in the back seat in my teens. It looked and acted like a saucer shaped object I saw in my middle school years. This time, I saw it for a few seconds. Maybe around 3. I thought it was just the reflection of the sun as this at an angle. I didn't say anything as it disappeared quickly. Later, when I was doing night patrols and driving a patrol car at late night parallel to a main road and telephone and electricity wires, I saw lights, but it was following in my direction. It turned out to be reflection of the lights in the distance against the night sky and the wires. Very tricky.

So, out of all that you list, I would say it was evolution that I invested the most time in learning. Until I had something to compare it to, I believed in evolution. Nothing spiritual at all about it. Global warming came second. When I compared it what other scientists were saying, then I stopped being concerned about it and realized it a trick like the UFO. What bothered me most was why Al Gore didn't conserve and why the business people who fly in private jets kept flying in private jets. Such hypocrisy. The only time I enjoyed it was when Gore threw his Live Earth concert in 2007. I'll still watch youtube replays. I think they're were other announcements for another bash, but it didn't materialize. What happened? Terrorism get in the way?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Out of these, what have you invested time in? For example, when I was in middle school and delivering papers early in the evening, I swore I saw a UFO. It looked like a small saucer shaped disc in the far distance towards a bright morning sun. It wasn't easy to look at as the sun was near and bright, but I stopped folding papers and watched as it was very fast and it zigged and zagged out of my sight. It probably lasted less than a second, but I thought it was longer than that. If another boy was with me, then I would have said something to him. Another time, I saw something similar traveling in a car in the back seat in my teens. It looked and acted like a saucer shaped object I saw in my middle school years. This time, I saw it for a few seconds. Maybe around 3. I thought it was just the reflection of the sun as this at an angle. I didn't say anything as it disappeared quickly. Later, when I was doing night patrols and driving a patrol car at late night parallel to a main road and telephone and electricity wires, I saw lights, but it was following in my direction. It turned out to be reflection of the lights in the distance against the night sky and the wires. Very tricky.

So, out of all that you list, I would say it was evolution that I invested the most time in learning. Until I had something to compare it to, I believed in evolution. Nothing spiritual at all about it. Global warming came second. When I compared it what other scientists were saying, then I stopped being concerned about it and realized it a trick like the UFO. What bothered me most was why Al Gore didn't conserve and why the business people who fly in private jets kept flying in private jets. Such hypocrisy. The only time I enjoyed it was when Gore threw his Live Earth concert in 2007. I'll still watch youtube replays. I think they're were other announcements for another bash, but it didn't materialize. What happened? Terrorism get in the way?

Yes each is a different case, I'd say UFOs are probably the least implausible, since it's a difficult negative to prove. Likewise with Bigfoot, easy to laugh off, but after spending some time in the Northwoods of north America, getting some appreciation for the vastness of the wilderness there, never mind Russia.. small enough populations with enough intelligence to stay hidden- not impossible!


But I think we can say with much more confidence- that a couple extra molecules CO2 in 10000 of air can't possibly trap any significant amount of heat, and that you can't design a human being by blind chance!

 

[metis]

Does evolution make any difference to you In your spirituality? Why or why not?

I left the church I grew up in about 50 years ago partially because it was against the acceptance of evolution. To me, any religion or denomination that is unwilling to accept basic scientific axioms is willing to allow itself to slip into absurdity.

As far as we can tell, everything material thing changes over time, and genes are material things.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Does evolution make any difference to you In your spirituality? Why or why not?

Dunno. I guess my beliefs just evolve over time.

I find evolution incompatible with a Creator who has a purpose for mankind.

I find it strange when humans hear other humans tell humans that humans have a particular purpose. God could just have passed the planet, thrown out a soda bottle, and POOF .... humans ... and never thought another thing about it. Having a Creator does NOT entail a higher purpose. It simply doesn't follow.

In relation to the human body, parts of the eye for example, are dependent on one another in order for sight to exist., so each being necessary to another's existence, which came first?

Photon-detecting cells.

Would the knowledge act like a magic wand and cause mankind to be less corrupt? Personally i don't think so.

Well, thinking it's just magic hasn't exactly made any utopias, so maybe we should go for a change of pace.

 

[rusra02]

Dunno. I guess my beliefs just evolve over time.


I find it strange when humans hear other humans tell humans that humans have a particular purpose. God could just have passed the planet, thrown out a soda bottle, and POOF .... humans ... and never thought another thing about it. Having a Creator does NOT entail a higher purpose. It simply doesn't follow.

No one creates a beautiful home, furnishes it exquisitely, stocks the home with the finest food and drink, landscapes it impeccably, placing it in just the right location for maximum pleasure, without some purpose in mind, IMO. I believe that is what the true God did when he prepared the earth for the two humans he lovingly and thoughtfully formed, who were obviously designed to enjoy the home forever. (Genesis 1:28)

 

[pearl]

Does evolution make any difference to you In your spirituality?

Would you include in this the evolution of the soul, the human psyche?

 

[Confucian Mormon Buddhist]

Very much so. I don't study evolution but I support it since it's generally accepted among experts. However, that means I can't be any sort of Young Earth Creationist.

 

[LuisDantas]

Does evolution make any difference to you In your spirituality? Why or why not?

Biological evolution? No. It is not a fact with religious significance.

I have however learned to be wary of certain doctrines that are obsessed with "spiritual evolution" as a truism, and at least one person once attempted to argue to me that "any evolution is worth supporting" as an argument for such a... doctrine, if I may abuse the word so.

On the other hand, I consider a chief requisite for a true religion to have the ability to evolve its doctrine as time passes and cultural circunstances change. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with biological evolution, nor with the cosmological issue of the origin of the universe that so-called creationists often insist to be "evolution".

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Part of the reason I disassociated myself from Christianity in the US is because I began to do serious research into evolution and found that the objections the church made didn't hold water under serious inquiry. That the objections were not bases in observation (for example there was a long while archaopteryx lithographica was considered a fake when I got to look at it through a microscope myself and confirm it wasn't.) but on preconceived notions and an importance of faith over reason. Later in my travels I found more Christians and other faiths who had no problems with evolution. But by that point I was no longer convinced the natural universe needed any kind of supernatural guiding force to exist and develop.

 

[janesix]

Does evolution make any difference to you In your spirituality? Why or why not?

Yes. I see that evolution has a direction, which backs up my belief in a creator.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I find evolution incompatible with a Creator who has a purpose for mankind.

Me too.