Is It Even Possible to Reconcile God with Evolution?

[Yerda]

It's fairly easy to imagine that God set the parameters that allowed the universe to be the way it is.

God and evolution are simple ideas to accomodate if you jettison the idea that God interferes.

 

[Sha'irullah]

If you are a religious person no. Muslims can do this to an extant but overall it is not possible unless you wish to be insincere.

As a liberal theist or deist it is entirely possible.

 

[LuisDantas]

If you are a religious person no. Muslims can do this to an extant but overall it is not possible unless you wish to be insincere.

As a liberal theist or deist it is entirely possible.

Care to elaborate? I'm not seeing the challenge.

 

[Yerda]

If you are a religious person no.

Millions of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus etc seem to be able to do it with ease.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

So what thinks you guys?

It's an amateurish attempt by an unsophisticated thinker to rationalize her predrawn conclusion that god and evolution are not reconcilable. None of her points logically follow from her arguments, or they are based on exceedingly narrow ideas of what constitutes a god and assumptions about what such a god would necessarily do.

I can't imagine a single rationalist-atheist I know agreeing with her conclusions or not being able to see the article for what it is - a flimsy attempt to support a biased, pre-formed conclusion.

 

[sun rise]

The Wikipedia article on theistic evolution seems pretty complete to me at least for Western frames of reference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_views_on_evolution adds a Hindu perspective. The Dalai Lama offers a Buddhist perspective:

The Dalai Lama suggests that the Darwinian model of evolution cannot explain everything about evolution, because the Darwinian model excludes non-material realities. This is where the Dalai Lama shows how Buddhism can offer a critique of a science based solely on materialism. The Dalai Lama's critique begins with the observation that according to current biological consensus, genetic mutations appear in a random, unpredictable manner. The Dalai Lama writes that the idea that the appearances of mutation “are purely random strikes me as unsatisfying. It leaves open the question of whether this randomness is best understood as an objective feature of reality or better understood as indicating some kind of hidden causality.” The Dalai Lama would agree with many Christians on this point: that mutations may be random from a methodologically naturalistic scientific perspective, but not necessarily random from a non-naturalist perspective.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Millions of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus etc seem to be able to do it with ease.

This is what I meant with sincerity. I am very familiar with Christianity and Islam and somewhat for Judaism.

They may reconcile it but they only do so by taking the sincerity away from their believes. You cannot render a verse as allegorical or unimportant because science has disproved it. You either stick to your stuff or not.
Religions like these only deal in absolutes, compromising is a lack of belief. Kufr as a Muslim would say

 

[LuisDantas]

I really wish you were a bit clearer and more specific, Philotech.

 

[sun rise]

This is what I meant with sincerity. I am very familiar with Christianity and Islam and somewhat for Judaism.

They may reconcile it but they only do so by taking the sincerity away from their believes. You cannot render a verse as allegorical or unimportant because science has disproved it. You either stick to your stuff or not.
Religions like these only deal in absolutes, compromising is a lack of belief. Kufr as a Muslim would say

That's not what I've found. Many, MANY I know are utterly sincere but are not literalists. You're of course free to state that they're not really sincere by your own personal frame-of-reference but that's not my viewpoint.

 

[Akivah]

In this article: Why You Can't Reconcile God and Evolution | Alternet, writer Greta Christina makes a pretty good case that the two cannot be reconciled. But as a theist I have to disagree, it is not that I believe in theistic evolution or that God somehow influenced or guided the process of evolution. I don't, I find theistic evolution impossible and contradictory but what I do believe is that God simply let the chips fall were they may and I believe that is the only way you can reconcile God and evolution.

So what thinks you guys?

I'm one of the people that the author referred to in her opening paragraph. I believe that G-d used evolution as a tool. I read the article, but didn't find it compelling.
First, G-d exists outside of time. Ms. Christina posits that evolution is too random for any entity to direct it. However, G-d sees past, present, and future at the same time. G-d already know how things turned out. So anything that appears random to us is already part of G-d's plan. Second, Ms. Christina points out what she considers flaws in existing life forms and uses her supposition as a proof for no G-d. However, just because she thinks something is a flaw doesn't mean that it is. It just means that we don't understand the reason for something. Third, Ms. Christina wants to use physical evidence to proof no G-d. However, my G-d doesn't have a physical body. G-d is beyond all of that. Fourth, the author uses the old tired statement of saying that since living beings can die horrible deaths that somehow this proves that G-d must be mean. This statement ignores that this same G-d caused and granted life in the first place to all living beings. And at no time does my G-d ever promise that anything will live forever. I think that holding G-d to something that was never said is a strawman.

 

[Sha'irullah]

I really wish you were a bit clearer and more specific, Philotech.

I cannot be clearer because I am addressing something utterly ambiguous . Being told to sift through scriptures that do not even make any coherent point on what a person is trying to convey is just ludicrous.

Limp dude foddington dat this thought neon lights WINNER!" is a better response at times.

 

[Sha'irullah]

That's not what I've found. Many, MANY I know are utterly sincere but are not literalists. You're of course free to state that they're not really sincere by your own personal frame-of-reference but that's not my viewpoint.

Back to the scriptures where does it state that god created the cosmos from something with prior existence?

Also as for the subjectivity of your assertions about literalism. If it does not attempt to be allegory then it should not be taken as allegory. I see no assertion for anything in Genesis to be taken as allegory when there is no indication. If you assert it is something else other than allegory then please explain the basis of your position.
For millenia Christians asserted Genesis as being real and historical. If Yahweh cannot explain his scriptures for himself then I am nil concerned

 

[Yerda]

Back to the scriptures where does it state that god created the cosmos from something with prior existence?

Also as for the subjectivity of your assertions about literalism. If it does not attempt to be allegory then it should not be taken as allegory. I see no assertion for anything in Genesis to be taken as allegory when there is no indication. If you assert it is something else other than allegory then please explain the basis of your position.
For millenia Christians asserted Genesis as being real and historical. If Yahweh cannot explain his scriptures for himself then I am nil concerned

You can be a sincere Jew, Christian, or Muslim without believing Genesis is historical fact.

 

[Sha'irullah]

You can be a sincere Jew, Christian, or Muslim without believing Genesis is historical fact.

So you can be sincere about something and corrupt it?

In this case I am a sincere believer in aliens and I know they do not exist.

 

[Ouroboros]

In addition to natural selection, there are other possible pressures: sexual selection and artificial selection. These can all operate simultaneously. Hypothetically, if there were another pressure - divine selection - it could also operate simultaneously with the others. There is no rational argument or evolutionary mechanism I can think of that would prevent this.

Also, since I know some about using evolutionary algorithms in software, you can give it nudges and push the evolution by changing the environmental pressure. Basically, if God was Thor, being in control of the thunderstorms and weather, just by changing from drought to flooding and back can be enough to force the evolutionary algorithm to optimize for species better shaped to handle both conditions.

 

[Ouroboros]

So you can be sincere about something and corrupt it?

In this case I am a sincere believer in aliens and I know they do not exist.

Many religious believe today that their holy books are more of a religious prose that can guide you to an understanding of God and existence, not a literal or historical book. So you can be totally sincere in believing that the book is not-literal, but rather figurative and illustrative.

In other words, you can sincere and believe that aliens do exist but sci-fi books aren't historical or true records of real encounters of aliens.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Many religious believe today that their holy books are more of a religious prose that can guide you to an understanding of God and existence, not a literal or historical book. So you can be totally sincere in believing that the book is not-literal, but rather figurative and illustrative.

In other words, you can sincere and believe that aliens do exist but sci-fi books aren't historical or true records of real encounters of aliens.

When I say sincere I am referring to the sincerity of the scripture along with the person. The sincerity of the event and the person who witnessed the event, although in this case the event is actually just a book.

Where in the religious texts do they claim that any portion of it is allegorical? The Bible dives into allegory at times but many things are obviously never stated to be allegory.

I can restate my assertions now I think of it. I can easily say "why is it god is not being sincere".
God could have easily produced a clear and coherent message.

 

[Yerda]

So you can be sincere about something and corrupt it?

In this case I am a sincere believer in aliens and I know they do not exist.

You are sincerely misinformed. That's all.

 

[Ouroboros]

When I say sincere I am referring to the sincerity of the scripture along with the person. The sincerity of the event and the person who witnessed the event, although in this case the event is actually just a book.

There's been many Jewish scribes pointing out that the Torah is not to be taken literal, but allegorical. For instance, look into Philo from Alexandria for instance (first century Jewish scholar and philosopher), who's writing was saved from destruction by Rome solely because of the early Christians. Did they know something we don't?

Where in the religious texts do they claim that any portion of it is allegorical? The Bible dives into allegory at times but many things are obviously never stated to be allegory.

Where in the Lord of the Rings does it say that it's just fiction? Therefore, LotR must be historical and must be sincerely considered to be such and can't be used to learn anything about human nature or anything else?

I can restate my assertions now I think of it. I can easily say "why is it god is not being sincere".
God could have easily produced a clear and coherent message.

Only if God was interested in us knowing. Maybe God isn't at all the God from the Bible, but something beyond that?

If I created an artificial world on my computer and managed to make the characters in there intelligent, would it automatically mean that my interest is for them to know about me or to figure it out on their own? What's the game I'm playing as God? Wouldn't it be more intriguing to give them hints here and there and see if they eventually get it?

 

[LuisDantas]

So you can be sincere about something and corrupt it?

You sure can. One of the ways of so doing is by insisting on literalism.