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God and Evolution

God &/or Evolution

  • God Only

    Votes: 2 6.5%
  • God and Evolution

    Votes: 8 25.8%
  • Evolution Only

    Votes: 17 54.8%
  • Neither God nor Evolution

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other (because there's always someone who wants other!)

    Votes: 4 12.9%

  • Total voters
    31

lunamoth

Will to love
We all know that the most scientific way to answer a question such as "God and Evolution" is to post a public poll on Religious Forums. The poll results can be scientifically tested by our resident poll scientists (Sunstone and whoever else in online at midnight) and we can scientifically determine, without doubt, whether God and Evolution can co-exist.

Vote!
 

lunamoth

Will to love
Guess I should qualify 'evolution' a bit. I don't mean that you accept the ToE as if it were written in stone, but as a valid scientific model for explaining speciation, including the evolution of humans from earlier non-human ancestors.
 

fantome profane

Anti-Woke = Anti-Justice
Premium Member
I have a little bit of a problem with this poll; I think it could be misleading. Personally I do not believe in “God” (or at least in a personal God) and I do believe in evolution (so I voted evolution only). However I don’t wish to make it look like these two are connected. It is not that I believe in evolution because I don’t believe in “God”, and it is not that I don’t believe in “God” because I believe in evolution. For me the one has nothing to do with the other.
 

Halcyon

Lord of the Badgers
I think it's a difficult dichotomy that you present, considering the minute scale of human understanding.

I voted evolution only, since at this point in time we have no evidence whatsoever of intelligent intervention.

But who can say what the next 100, 1000 or even 1,000,000 years of scientific exploration will bring?

Perhaps we will discover that evolution has been guided by extraterrestrial beings 100,000,000 years older (species wise) than ourselves.
Perhaps humans from a future time have been selectively breeding life over the aeons to result in human beings, in an extreme "I'm my own grandfather" paradox.

Maybe long lived creatures from a parallel universe have guided the evolutionary course of life on this world? Or maybe unseen beings somehow constructed of dark matter of whom we are utterly unaware are humanity's creator gods?
Maybe we are all part of a computer simulation, or exist in some alien child's dreamscape.

Or maybe God did it. Frankly, the possibilities are endless.

But we can't know, so I choose to remain completely open minded, however, since so far all the evidence points to an utterly natural progression I will say that all alternative hypothesis are irrelevant until such time as compelling evidence in their favour is presented.
 

robtex

Veteran Member
fantôme profane;1060031 said:
It is not that I believe in evolution because I don’t believe in “God”, and it is not that I don’t believe in “God” because I believe in evolution. For me the one has nothing to do with the other.


That kept me from voting too. It comes across as a false dichotomy. It could be further complicated that if one are accepting evolution because one see the evidences of DNA, selective breeding, fossils ect, it isn't that "believes" in evolution but rather that one accepts (or rejects) the theory evolution based on the evidence presented as opposed to "on faith" To complicate the God issue more, one can accept God based solely on faith (fideism) or one can accept God based on propositions they feel as evidence with examples being ID, creationism, gnostic revelations (to the receiver) or personal experience with the 5 senses with God.

I think if one is fideistically inclined the question could be examined for type of believer but may be harder to reconcile for a person who accepts God based on a perceived block of evidence (like intelligent design).

If a theist followed an abrahamic God there might be some tough areas to navigate. For instance, in Christianity and Islam in particular man is the zenith of all creation, hence his special relationship to God. In evolution man is just another mutation in a long of mutations leading to new species. The two ideas are mutually exclusive in their propositions. Man is either the zenith of creation or he is not. He can't be both.

If one came to the conclusion that there is a personal God perhaps working it in a flow chart manner could yield a more comprehensive result for your question. For instance
In an really simplified example:

A: There is a personal God (if yes than)
B: My conclusion is bases on (a) evidence (b) fideism
C: If (a) than provide said evidence
C2: Does evidence for God conflict with Evolution (a) yes (b)no
C3 If yes than both theories cannot be correct or valid
C4: If no than theories are not mutually exclusive
D: In regards to (B) if fideism than no conflict exists

Of course, if one choses (a) evidence or (b) fedeism than further issues are construed. For instance, if fedeism is your driving motivator for God how does that affect the validity of your holy book which under the umbrella of fedeism would no longer be a book of fact?
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
We all know that the most scientific way to answer a question such as "God and Evolution" is to post a public poll on Religious Forums. The poll results can be scientifically tested by our resident poll scientists (Sunstone and whoever else in online at midnight) and we can scientifically determine, without doubt, whether God and Evolution can co-exist.

Vote!
Could this be moved to the 'Joke' sub-forum, if only to minimize unnecessary pollution in this one?
 

lunamoth

Will to love
I kept the wording open intentionally, and did not ask if you 'believe' in God or 'believe' in evolution. Are the concepts of God and evolution compatible or not, and if they are not, which concept makes the most sense to you? You could probably substitute the phrase "scientific approach to understanding the world" for "evolution."
 

robtex

Veteran Member
I kept the wording open intentionally, and did not ask if you 'believe' in God or 'believe' in evolution. Are the concepts of God and evolution compatible or not, and if they are not, which concept makes the most sense to you? You could probably substitute the phrase "scientific approach to understanding the world" for "evolution."

Ok you have two models you are trying to meld:

Evolution
God (Christian in your case)

The first thing I want to point out to you is that most of the people theists and non-theists alike realize that the models don't meld very easily. Even your Christian brothers and sisters see problems with what they deem as micro-evolution, specie mutations, and purely organic life medical biological definitions of life and death vs Christian definitions of life and death. I noticed you didn't address my mutually exclusive example of man as the zenith of creation and man as another mutation along an endless series of mutations.

I feel like in your case, essentially the elephant in the room is that both your religious peers (Christians) and non-theists see that essentially you are attempting to intragrate two separate and distinct models.

A number of questions for you in your "reconciliation of the two are as follows:

1) evolutionary theory says man is a mutation in a series of biological mutations. Your religion says man is the zenith of creation. How can you reconcile those two mutually exclusive ideas?

2) Biological theory holds that all living things are composed of carbon and dna but your religion says there is a non-carbon based non-dna composed soul that is living. These two ideas are mutually exclusive to me. How do you reconcile that?

3) Biological theory states that life is a finite experience where all living organisms that are born will one day die. Your religion by contrast stipulates that people who have faith in Jesus will not die but instead transition to a spirtual form and live much longer, maybe forever. These two ideas again are mutually exclusive by design. How do you reconcile them?

I could list out more but I think this kinda scratches the surface. The reality is the two models, Christianity and evolution do not fit so easily together. For one to attempt to intragrate the two concessions or changes need to be made to one or both of the models so they can fit. We see these changes in things like:

1) Christians rejecting "micro-evolution" but accepting other aspects of it

2) Christians rejecting the 6 day birth of man theory but still accepting a non-evidenceable God made man as opposed to man being the product of genetic drift over a long period of time.

3) Christians accepting evolution but rejecting the idea that man may evolve and change over time

ect ect.

Rather than running a poll and voting without laying out the details the real challenge for you will be to construct both models as you understand them in terms of principles and see where they fit and where they don't before saying

"I believe in God and evolution" , or "I accept both God and evolution" ect ect.

I feel like in this case constructing both models and looking at them both separately and than as a possible melded model is a much more academic method of assessing your assertion as opposed to voting and not detailing why you or others say yes or no to the question of "evolution and God."

A really good place to start out for you would be to address this:

1) Do you accept evolution based on the evidence used to support it or do you accept evolution based on faith?

2) Do you accept God on the evidence used to support his existence or do you accept God on faith.

If the answer to number 1 and number 2 is different why the different standards of measurement for # 1 and # 2 and is this an issue in the melding of your two models?
 

lunamoth

Will to love
Hi Rob,

You've made quite a few assumptions about what I might or must 'believe.' I personally don't try to reconcile or especially to meld faith in God with my acceptance of the ToE. I feel that these two concepts are compatible and don't interfere with each other in the least. I'm not a proponent of ID 'science.' God created it all and it was good.

A really good place to start out for you would be to address this:

1) Do you accept evolution based on the evidence used to support it or do you accept evolution based on faith?

2) Do you accept God on the evidence used to support his existence or do you accept God on faith.

If the answer to number 1 and number 2 is different why the different standards of measurement for # 1 and # 2 and is this an issue in the melding of your two models?
Evolution on the evidence and God on faith, because God is not testable and Evolution is useless unless it is testable.

"God did something rather more splendid than just make the world; he made the world make itself." -- Alister McGrath paraphrasing Frederick Temple.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
fantome profane said:
I have a little bit of a problem with this poll; I think it could be misleading. Personally I do not believe in “God” (or at least in a personal God) and I do believe in evolution (so I voted evolution only).
You could have selected "Neither God nor evolution".
 

Hela cells/lab pandemic

Panentheist sans dogma
People say 'evolution' when they really mean ' Darwinism/ Darwinian evolution' ad nauseam...

The two ...evolution and Darwinism are not necessarily the same...evolution could just as easily entail creative-evolution/ purposeful creation driven by intelligence over untold eons= ID

To use an analogy...cars have ' evolved' and there is even an element of natural selection here, as in consumer choice...But the design of cars was obviously also purposeful / underpinned by intelligence...and there was nothing random about these Design modifications at all !

Why not say ' Darwinism' when u mean Darwinism ?...avoiding unneccessary confusion

That way ur poll...wouldn't be virtually WORTHLESS/ MEANINGLESS ?!?

CHEERS
 

YmirGF

Bodhisattva in Recovery
I voted for "god" (whatever people mean by that exactly) and evolution. Then again, I don't perceive god the way that other common garden gnomes do, so that shouldn't be a surprise.
 

Dirty Penguin

Master Of Ceremony
We all know that the most scientific way to answer a question such as "God and Evolution" is to post a public poll on Religious Forums. The poll results can be scientifically tested by our resident poll scientists (Sunstone and whoever else in online at midnight) and we can scientifically determine, without doubt, whether God and Evolution can co-exist.

Vote!

Oh NO!!!!

Not another evolution vs. creationism thread.......:(
 
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