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Is it possible to believe in both God and Evolution?

Jeremy Mason

Jeremy Mason

Well-Known Member
Katzpur said:
Can you imagine God trying to explain to the people of Old Testament times how He really created the earth? Holy Cow! They wouldn't have been able to make any sense of it at all. It's kind of like the story we've all heard about how Johnny asks his mom, "Where did I come from?" and she gives him this long, involved story about the birds and the bees. His response is, "Oh. Bobby came from Milwaukee." I believe that Genesis explains the miracle of the creation, but does so in a manner that the people living thousands of years ago could relate to. To me, it shows a divine plan and a logical execution of that plan. I fully believe that the universe has evolved over billions of years and I fully believe that God was in control every step of the way.
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Sounds good to me.:)
 
logician

logician

Well-Known Member
Jeremy Mason said:
It's because your mind and heart are calloused. When was the last time you read a book that involves some type of god. A good easy reading book is Sadartha by Herman Hess. It's a real page turner.
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I've read the Xian bible thru twice and more besides,along with many other religions texts and heard more preachin than most people do in 2 lifetimes. I can confidently say from my experience that the Xian bible is a work of fiction, not fact. It's not me who has a calloused mind, its those who accept falsehoods w/o question.
 
M

Michel07

Active Member
logician said:
I can confidently say from my experience that the Xian bible is a work of fiction, not fact. It's not me who has a calloused mind, its those who accept falsehoods w/o question.
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Allow me to point out the fact that you would have to go pretty far back in human history to find atheism as the benchmark of philisophical intellectualism. I suggest the prehistoric period. But you make a good observation when you say " from my experience" because individual knowledge is biographical by nature and all people have different experiences and experience is not defined or confined to just reading something that you are already skeptical about. But do you have any sort of proof to substantiate any of these opinions regarding why other people accept things that you do not? Without imagination one cannot be open minded and one requires an open mind about any subject to be able to learn about it.

Imagination is more important than intelligence.--Albert Einstein
 
Jeremy Mason

Jeremy Mason

Well-Known Member
Michel07 said:
Allow me to point out the fact that you would have to go pretty far back in human history to find atheism as the benchmark of philisophical intellectualism. I suggest the prehistoric period. But you make a good observation when you say " from my experience" because individual knowledge is biographical by nature and all people have different experiences and experience is not defined or confined to just reading something that you are already skeptical about. But do you have any sort of proof to substantiate any of these opinions regarding why other people accept things that you do not? Without imagination one cannot be open minded and one requires an open mind about any subject to be able to learn about it.

Imagination is more important than intelligence.--Albert Einstein
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I agree, I tried frubaling you but they said that I had to spread the wealth.
 
Katzpur

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
logician said:
Ah, oh, personal attack, And Curly's not around to defend himself.
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Why don't you report me and see how seriously the staff takes your complaint? Whenever I see a photograph of a real person as someone's avatar, that's how I picture that poster. Or if it would make you feel better to fight back, why don't you just tell me I look like a cute little wide-eyed kitten. Then watch to see how I react and take a hint from me: You really need to lighten up.
 
Autodidact

Autodidact

Intentionally Blank
Katzpur said:
Why don't you report me and see how seriously the staff takes your complaint? Whenever I see a photograph of a real person as someone's avatar, that's how I picture that poster. Or if it would make you feel better to fight back, why don't you just tell me I look like a cute little wide-eyed kitten. Then watch to see how I react and take a hint from me: You really need to lighten up.
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Actually I'm guessing that logician was joking, and you're the one who needs to lighten up.

I have the same problem with Sola's avatar. Who is that girl, and why is she his avatar?
 
logician

logician

Well-Known Member
Autodidact said:
Actually I'm guessing that logician was joking, and you're the one who needs to lighten up.

I have the same problem with Sola's avatar. Who is that girl, and why is she his avatar?
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I chose my avatar so as to give the impression I don't take my handle too seriously, evidently, some people do.
 
ChristineES

ChristineES

Tiggerism
Premium Member
I used to have a cross for my avatar, but I also (like Logician) felt a need to let people know that I never take myself too seriously. Tigger was the best choice-he's cute and he bounces and is never serious.
 
E

Escéptico

Active Member
Rowenn said:
I do. It's called Theistic Evolution. Look it up on wikipedia.org.
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According to Wikipedia:

Theistic evolution holds that the theist's acceptance of evolutionary biology is not fundamentally different from the acceptance of other sciences, such as astronomy or meteorology. The latter two are also based on a methodological assumption of naturalism to study and explain the natural world, without assuming the existence or nonexistence of the supernatural. In this view, it is held both religiously and scientifically correct to reinterpret ancient religious texts in line with modern-day scientific findings about evolution.

This synthesis of the teleology underlying faith and religious teachings with science can still be described as creationism in holding that divine intervention brought about the origin of life or that divine Laws govern formation of species, but in the creation-evolution controversy its proponents generally take the "evolutionist" side. For this reason, some on both sides prefer to use the term "theistic evolution" over "evolutionary creationism" to describe this belief.

Sounds like a fence-sitting exercise if there ever was one. Daniel Dennett talks about 'skyhook-seeking' in Nature: people are so convinced that there's an underlying mystical purpose to natural phenomena that they propose skyhooks to describe the design work of nature's cranes.

Nowhere is this more evident than in biology. Pre-Darwin, people had a rational reason to believe that the complex workings of the biosphere must have been designed, since no natural mechanism had been proposed that explained the origin of such obvious design. But after Darwin described the network of algorithms that accounted for biodiversity and the design of living systems, the very idea that design is by definition the result of intentional, intelligent activity was obsolete.

As I've pointed out many times before, most people are uncomfortable with the notion of the design power of blind, undirected mechanisms. So the creationist shell game has developed sophisticated side-scams like intelligent design and theistic evolution, which exploit people's capacity for fairness and consensus.

A belief in God doesn't prevent someone from affirming evolution by natural selection. But mixing the two doesn't improve either.
 
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