Evolution and Religion: Do They Conflict?

I don't believe that evolution is true because 1. It has not been proven by scientific methods. It has not been observed and has not been proven by scientific experiments.
2. The Bible contradicts evolution. If God had created by evolution, He could easily have told us so. The fact that the Bible tells a different story means that either evolution is untrue, or it means that God did not inspire Genesis.

Evolution is not science, it is philosophy. Ther is no credible science to prove it. Those who "believe" in evolution do so without any scientific proof. They believe it because they want to, not because they are led to it by the evidence.

"In the end it's not what you know, it's who you know, that matters"... With that statement, I would agree. But who is this God you write about? The one, you say, 'could' but was not 'bound' to 'create life forms in an instant'... The one who is 'bigger' than that... Big enough, in other words, to inspire the Scripture that clearly spells out His method of creation (requiring no 'interpretation') in the form of a huge fairy tale--a lie? Is the God you know so big that He cannot be 'bound' by His own words, yet so small that He must conform to what you say 'science indicates'? Your idea that God is 'big enough' to express Truth in the words of a lie is absurd.
Besides that... Science does NOT 'indicate' that God 'created' the universe over billions of years through evolution. Science 'indicates' nothing. Science boldly declares. Science is knowledge (by definition), not theory. Evolution is theory, not science. And the athiest who believes what the theory of evolution suggests is more honest than the so-called 'progressive' Christian, who claims to believe both evolution and the Bible.
One cannot believe God spoke words and light came into existence, and later spoke words again and celestial bodies (sun, moon, and stars) came into existence--and also believe those celestial bodies, and the light they produce or reflect, 'evolved' through a natural process.
Neither can one believe that God formed a body out of dust, and breathed life into that body, thus creating a man... And then from that man's body removed a rib, from which He created woman--and still believe man 'evolved' from some kind of fish, monkey, or whatever.
The athiest, though scipturally a 'fool' is at least honest enough to be consistent. The theory of evolution is convenient to him, as an explanation of how we got here--an explanation he longs for, since he refuses to believe in creation. At least he has enough sense to know you cannot believe in both.
There is one other true statement you made, Mr. Prescott... You said "[God] is the only one who has all the answers".
You are right. But what good will that do you, when you choose not to believe the answers He has revealed in His Word?
EH

Ugh. The trolls strike again.

I really don't understand what the big deal is about evolution. You can be Christian and accept evolution, you can be Christian and not accept evolution, you can be not Christian and accept evolution or you can be not Christian and not accept evolution. Why do we care?

When it comes to education, I have no problem with intelligent design being taught in public schools, as long as its in a class on comparitive religion (which, btw. might be useful in a majority Christian country thats more and more having to deal with a pluralistic population and world).

Lastly, why do we try to reconcile Genesis to direct observation? If we understand Genesis as purely fabel, then I don't see what is lost. In fact, I only see gains.

john g

Evolution has never been observed. So your "direct observation" comment is useless.

If Genesis is fable, then there is no reason why the rest of the Bible should not also be considered fable as well.

Gary,

Could you try seeing things my way for once? I've tried explaining this to you numerous times.

The Bible is a collection of works by many different authors and redactors, all operating across centuries of time. There are many different genres, messages, and interpretations that come out of this very diverse collection of books. To say that Genesis should be read as fable does not mean that the Psalms should not be read as poetry or the Epistles as letters or Revelation as apocalypse. All are different GENRES. There are many, many different genres in the Bible. I'm sure we can agree on that.

As for direct observation, I am simply refering to the fact that evolution explains direct observations much much much better than any other theory on the market, especially Biblical literalism. In fact, cosmologists now consider the Big Bang FACT based on the existence of the Cosmic Microwave Background, which basically boots Biblical literalism out the door right there, evolution vs. creationism is pre-empted by several billion years.

john g

I understand where you are coming from. But, I think you are wrong.

Biblical literalism has not been proven false by anything that is observed. Whether cosmologists are right is questionable, since they are fallible and very limited in their ability to "observe" history. I'm not sure a "big bang" to start the universe would disprove the Bible anyway.

You, and other evolutionists, assume that evolution is true because you want to assume it, and not because the facts compel you to. For instance, there is not a single case on record of anyone observing one kind of living thing evolving into another kind, which is what evolution says happened. Using naturalistic assumptions, there is no experiment that has been performed to prove such a thing is even possible, much less actually happened. So, evolution as not been observed and has not been proven by experimentation. Why then would anyone believe it? And why would anyone claim that it is science when there is no science to back it up?

When you read Genesis as fable, when it was written as history, ye do err. And if you read Genesis as fable, then to be consistant, you should read the other parts of the Bible that were written as history as fable also. The Gospels would be an example.

Was Genesis written as history? Were the Gospels written as history? The genre of many parts of the Bible are the subject of INTENSE scholarly debate. Understanding the genre intentions of authors and redactors is essential if one wants to find the author/redactor's intended meanings in a text. Did the author of Mark think he was writing a history or a biography? What did those words mean for him? It makes a difference. Did the author of Genesis think he was writing a creation myth to explain the world and God, or did he think he was writing an actual accounting of specific events.

While the actual act of evolution is not observed, we can observe the world around us and ask how it got that way. Evolution is the best the answer so far. It fits, the holes in it are constantly being filled in by new paleontolgical and genetic discoveries.

Was Genesis written as history? Well, Jesus considered it history. He spoke of the creation, and made references to some of the people from Genesis such as Abraham and Noah. And Jesus spoke of the flood. If Genesis is a fable, Jesus misunderstood it.

Were the Gospels written as history? Was Jesus born to Mary? Did he live in Nazareth? Was he crucified and did he rise from the dead? Did he have diciples whose names are recorded in the gospels? If those things arent history what are they? More fable?

If evolution is true and scientific then its claims should be either observable and/or testable by experiment. But they have not been observed or tested. Doesn't that make it philosophy instead of science?

Just a little more response here to the initial post...
"Evolution and Religion: Do they conflict?"
Absolutely not... Evolution IS religion.
It is the product of base Humanism. If evolution is true, there is no miracle in the existence of our world--our universe. If everything came about by the natural process of evolution, God had nothing to do with it. Evolution by 'design' is a complete contradiction in terms.
You wonder why some cannot believe God is 'big enough' to 'create' through billions of years of evolution? What kind of a silly question is that? By your own reasoning... What is the difference, to an eternal God, between billions of years and six days?
And you think God inspired Moses to write about creation in a way it could be understood? Funny--nobody seems to 'understand' it unless they change the way it was written and make it out to be some natural process taking billions of years.
The Truth is: God is much bigger than you think. He is big enough to speak a word and fling stars into their appointed places. He is big enough to form a body of dust, speak (breathe) life into it and create a living man--a man who was fully mature, when he was but seconds old. And just like the man was created in full maturity--the earth, sun, moon, stars, etc., were all created in their maturity, though in a moment, they were spoken into existence.
If the most learned scientist of our time were able to travel back in time and study Adam, 24 hours after creation, he would never believe this perfectly mature man was but a day old. And no scientist today, with mere intellect, can study the earth and the heavens and understand how they are but 6000 years old... But God is 'big enough' to have created them (in their maturity), in exactly the same manner He described.
The theory of evolution did not begin with Darwin... It began with rebels of old--those described in Romans, Chapter 1, who knew the only way to justify their perverted sexual desires and escape their knowledge of God--which knowledge God had revealed to them, through "creation" (not evolution)--was to begin to worship the 'creature' instead of the 'Creator'. This, they persisted in, until God let them go... Until He 'gave them over' to the dictates of their reprobate minds--'men with men' and 'women with women' doing the detestable and unspeakable--and taking pleasure in (condoning) others who began doing the same, just like it is today.
It is the knowledge of God, His invisible attributes, and His pending wrath on man's wickedness, that are revealed to all of mankind through "creation", not 'evolution'. And it is that same knowledge, many today seek to avoid, by turning from the truth of creation to the fable of evolution... If there was no creation--there is no Creator... And if there is no Creator--there will be no one to answer to... Thus, they feel free to 'do those things which are right in their own eyes'.
'As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in days of the coming of the Son of man.'
EH

Gary,
"It has not been proven by scientific methods" - science does not try to PROVE things about nature, it tries to come up with the best explanation that agrees with the facts, and renders predictions which can be tested with additional data. Evolution is the best scientific explanation for the diversity of life.

"It has not been observed and has not been proven by scientific experiments" - evolution of species can take thousands or millions of years to occur, therefore our observation of speciations would be rare, but they have been observed. there have been many predictions made by evolutionary theory which have been observed over the last 150 years, transitional fossils of whales to name just one.

"The bible contradicts evolution" - evolution contradicts your interpretation of the bible, not everyone's. As Dr. Prescott points out, we are not infallible in our interpretation. Just as we adjusted our understanding of the movements of the sun and the earth, without any real degradation of our respect for the truths in the Bible, we will need to adjust our understanding of Genesis as we learn more about HOW God created us>

John,

Observation, testing and experimentation are critical to real science. But evolution fails to measure up. Evolution has not been observed, nor tested, nor subjected to experimentation. Transitional fossils of whales? What were they transitioning into? Get real! To claim evidence that does not exist is fraud. Rather than calling evolution science, why not be honest and call it what it really is, science fiction?

"Theistic evolutionists" believe that Genesis is a myth, a work of fiction. Many of you have said so, while some of you don't want to put it quite that bluntly. But I continue to say that if Genesis is fiction, then there is no sound reason to believe that any of the Bible is actually true, in any historic way. If you mythologize the Bible, it can mean whatever each individual wants it to mean. And isn't that what you want anyway?

Gary,

We CAN observe, test, and experiment, based on predictions generated by the theory of evolution. We OBSERVE the effects of evolution. For instance, since we know that whales are mammals, scientists predicted that they are descended from land mammals, and look for fossils of transitional animals with features between present whales and some land mammals. Scientists predicted that the transitional animals would display varying sizes of legs, and openings in the skull for blowholes closer to the front of the skull. They predicted that the intial transition from land dwelling whale ancestor probably occurred in fresh water environments, such as streams or lakes, and that it probably occurred at one location on Earth. All of these predictions have been OBSERVED. Just last week a paper outlined the discovery of a toothed baleen whale, which is also predicted by the theory.

All of the predictions of evolutionary theory provide TESTS for the theory. In science test are often set up to disprove a hypothesis. If we were to find a fossil of an early whale with gills, that would be a serious blow to our understanding.

EXPERIMENTATION can by done on the genetics of present whales and whale embryos. Through EXPERIMENTATION we see that the whales closest land dwelling relative is the hippo. Through EXPERIMENTATION we can see that whale embryos grow rear legs early in development, which then shrink to nothing, although some species have leg bones next to the spine. Through EXPERIMENTATION we can examine isotopes of oxygen in the fossils of early whales and observe that the isotopes of the earliest whales match the isotopes found in fresh water environments.

Theistic evolutionists do not believe that Genesis is a myth or fiction. The important truths are that God created the universe, God created us, humans have the free will to choose a relationship with God, and when we sin, we lose our close relationship with God. These truths are retained whether or not we believe evolution is how God created the world.

Hi, I've never been here before. If anyone is interested I put in my URL box a website that explains my favorite evidence for evolution. This evidence and other evidence I have seen has convinced me Genesis is fiction.

John,

You said, "We observe the effects of evolution." Only if you look at things through the prism of evolution. If you believe evolution is true, then when you look at things you will try to make what you see fit with evolution. You presuppose that evolution is true, and then when you look at nature you reach conclusions that you try to fit with evolution.

I reject evolution and believe that God created the universe, as recorded in Genesis. When I see similarities between living things, I conclude they had a common Creator. The evolutionist concludes they had a common ancestor.

Theistic evolutionists do indeed believe Genesis is myth. None of you believe the Genesis account of creation. If you did you would reject evolution. None of you believe that Adam and Eve were real people. None of you believe in The Fall. None of you believe in the Flood. Shall I go on?

Genesis and evolution are incompatible. And since the remainder of the Bible is based on the truthfulness of Genesis, one could reasonably conclude, and I do, that theistic evolutionists don't really believe any of the Bible. What you do is mythologize it, and then you can "interpret" it any way you please.

It is interesting that Jesus believed Genesis, as written, and not as myth. That makes me question whether anyone can get right with God while rejecting Genesis.

Gary, Two people can look at nature and reach different conclusions. But if two people look at genetic evidence they have to reach the same conclusions, unless one person thinks God enjoys deceiving scientists.

You are right, Genesis and evolution are incompatible. Both can't be correct. There is massive and powerful evidence supporting evolution. The genetic evidence that has recently become available is even stronger evidence that evolution is a fact.

There is absolutely zero scientific evidence for Genesis. Actually all scientific evidence shows Genesis to be incorrect. Genesis is obviously just a made up story.

You don't have to believe me. Look at and study the massive genetic evidence yourself. You could start with the website in my URL box.

Mike,

I'm in a hurry, so I'll be brief. Actually, there is zero scientific evidence for evolution, since evolution is impossible. Genetic evidence does NOT support evolution in any way, and anyone who says it does is either confused or lying. In order for evolution to be true, the universe must be eternal, and that is an impossibility.

Hi John g

"When it comes to education, I have no problem with intelligent design being taught in public schools, as long as its in a class on comparitive religion (which, btw. might be useful in a majority Christian country thats more and more having to deal with a pluralistic population and world)."

To quote President Elect Matt Santos: I believe that God created the heavens and the earth and I like to think he was intelligent. But I don't think that ought to be taught in science classes, not even as an alternative view to evolution. This is because evolution IS biological science--there is no modern biology without evolution. Science classes are supposed to teach the current state of science. Intelligent design isn't science at all since it cannot be examinede by the methods of science. It's really just a fancied up "theological argument from design", an argument I find convincing but which isn't a scientific notion at all.

your friend
Keith

Hello Gary, thanks for your comments.

I suggest that before you claim there is no genetic evidence for evolution, you actually take a look at it first.

Evolution has nothing to do with whether or not the universe is eternal. Evolution only explains how new species appeared after life began about four billion years ago.

Evoluton is not only possible, it has happened. Your claim there is no evidence for evolution is very incorrect. The evidence for evolution has been growing rapidly for more than a century. The more recent genetic evidence is extremely powerful and convincing.

I'm sorry this overwhelming massive evidence for evolution conflicts with your religious beliefs, but I think you are better off understanding how the world really works.

Keith,

Evolution is not scientific. It has never been observed and no test has ever confirmed it. Evolution is philosophy. To pretend that it is science is fraudulent. If evolution was scientific, it could be proven by scientific means. But it has not been proven. To suggest that you can't have biology without evolution is insane.

Mike A.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. There is not a shread of credible scientific evidence to support evolution. None.

In order for evolution to be true, and in order for there to be a planet where life could exist, the universe must have made itself. And in order for that to have been possible, the universe must have always existed in some form. The universe, or matter, could not have had a beginning because nothing can come from nothing. Therefore, the universe, in some form, must be eternal.

There is no proof whatsoever, that any species of life evolved from another species. No fossil evidence, no genetic evidence, no evidence of any kind. Any such "evidence", so-called, is a product of incorrect assumptions and faulty reasoning.

Hi Gary:

I think you misunderstand what science is (and I think I do understand how it works:-). Evolution hasn't been observed? Gravity hasn't been observed--all that has been observed is matter moving in certain patterns when near other matter. What gravitation theory attempts to do is concisely explain what *is* observed. The test of the theory is how well the theory can predict future observations.

This is the same for evolution theory. You don't have to actually *see* species changing in to other species for evolution theory to be scientific.

your friend
keith

HI Gary:

You wrote: Theistic evolutionists do indeed believe Genesis is myth. None of you believe the Genesis account of creation. If you did you would reject evolution. None of you believe that Adam and Eve were real people. None of you believe in The Fall. None of you believe in the Flood. Shall I go on?

KEITH: I for one don't believe Adam and Eve were real people and I don't believe in the flood, so your observation is on target for folks like me. But theistic evolution doesn't preclude believing that A and E were real people. Assuming humanity evolved from prior species, at some point in that past no humans existed, and now they do. Thus there must have been a first human. This human could have been Adam, and God could have breathed into him life in the spiritual sense, as described in Genesis. I don't buy that theory, but there is nothing impossible about it.

Keith
your friend

Keith,

If you hold a rock up at chest level and drop it you see gravity at work. That is an example of a scientific test. Evolution has never passed any test like that. You "assume" that humanity evolved from prior species, but you can't prove it.

As I have previously said, Jesus believed Genesis to be historically true. Isn't it curious that you claim to be a follower of Jesus and yet reject what Jesus both believed and
taught? If Jesus believed and taught things that you think are untrue, why would you want to follow someone like that? If He was wrong about Genesis, what makes you think He was right about anything else?

Did you know that none of the Bible makes any sense without the book of Genesis? It lays the foundation for everything that follows. Could the rejection of Genesis be a key reason why some people want to reject the historicity of Scripture and mythologize it instead? Duh.
There is a Biblical term for this: unbelief.

Hi Gary:

YOU WROTE: if you hold a rock up at chest level and drop it you see gravity at work. That is an example of a scientific test. Evolution has never passed any test like that. You "assume" that humanity evolved from prior species, but you can't prove it.

KEITH: You are wrong about what you'll see. What you'll *see* is a rock moving toward the ground. Your *theory* is that this movement was caused by the gravitational interaction between the mass of the rock and the mass of the earth. You *never* see the gravity since it is an invisible force or an invisible distrotion in the fabric of space/time or some such thing. It's the same thing with evolution.

GARY: As I have previously said, Jesus believed Genesis to be historically true. Isn't it curious that you claim to be a follower of Jesus and yet reject what Jesus both believed and
taught? If Jesus believed and taught things that you think are untrue, why would you want to follow someone like that? If He was wrong about Genesis, what makes you think He was right about anything else?

Did you know that none of the Bible makes any sense without the book of Genesis? It lays the foundation for everything that follows.

KEITH: A couple of points.

1. According to the Bible Jesus didn't know everything, including some things we now *do* know. For example: "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." (Luke 22:42). Jesus thought that it was *possible* that he might be spared the crucifixion; we know know that was not possible. There is no reason to think that Jesus knew any science that was unknown to people at the time. There is no problem is supposing that Jesus' shared the mistaken preconceptions about the historicity of Genesis that the people of the time held. This has nothing to do with the truth of his *teachings*.

2. Jesus' teachings weren't about the trivial debate between evolution/creation. As William Jennings Bryant said during the Scopes Trial, what matters is the Rock of Ages, not the Age of Rocks. Jesus taught us how to have relationship with the creator and sustainer of the universe, how to live life, and it is silly for us to divide over insignificant matters.

your friend
Keith

Gary, you said " Jesus believed Genesis to be historically true."

Who cares what Jesus believed? Was Jesus a scientist? No, he wasn't. In fact he knew as much about science as you do, in other words he knew absolutely nothing about science. He probably didn't even know how to spell science. Actually I don't think the word "science" was even invented that long ago.

You keep repeating this: "You assume that humanity evolved from prior species, but you can't prove it."

I already provided you with powerful evidence that all humans, including you, including me, including Jesus, share a common ancestor with chimpanzees. Yet you refuse to look at this evidence and keep repeating there is no evidence. I compare you to someone who keeps insisting there's no evidence the earth is round, instead of flat.

You are beyond hope my friend. I just hope you don't try to force your nonsense creationism into public school science classes, like other Christians have tried to do.

In case you're wondering, yes, I'm an atheist. I don't have any beliefs in invisible supernatural magicians like your Christian God. I think rationally, you should try that sometime, but you never will.

your friend,

Mike A.

Gary,

Stop with the pseudo-science. Read some books about cosmology directed at non-scientists. Get a handle on the fact that the universe does not have to have come from something.

Also, how does everything else in the Bible rely on Genesis? I had no idea.

Lastly, did Jesus believe that Genesis was history? Did Jesus understand history the way we understand it? Which one of the two contradictory accounts of the creating in Genesis did Jesus believe in literally?

In Jesus's time, it was assumed that biographers and historians made up their quotations of historical figures. The idea was that the historian was to write eloquent speeches that had the gist of what historical figures thought. In the writings of Jesus's time, meterological, geological, medical, etc. occurances that we now understand were assigned supernatural explinations. But Jesus's message was about salvation and social justice. He didn't go about explaining how the universe functions. Unless I missed the "Sermon on the Physics behind God's Creation" the last time I read the NT, I don't see the point in looking for scientific treatises in the Bible.

Hi Mike

You wrote: "In case you're wondering, yes, I'm an atheist. I don't have any beliefs in invisible supernatural magicians like your Christian God. I think rationally, you should try that sometime, but you never will".

I agree with you about science--religious doctrine, even thinly disguised religious doctrine--ought not be taught in science classes. And I'm sure you think rationally. Which is why I am sure you recognize that your atheist view is as much a matter of faith as is our Christian view. Scientific reasoning depends on initial premises that are not themselves derived from science and *those* premises are they very things that the science minded accept on faith. And atheists accept on faith the notion belief in God is superstition--you cannot have any evidence to support such a view. I am not one to try and cram my beliefs down anyone's throat--Christ explicitly taught us believers not to.

I guess that's all I have to say right now.

your friend
Keith

Right Keith, I don't have evidence there's no God. I also don't have evidence there's a teapot orbiting Pluto. If anyone claims there's a God, or a teapot orbits Pluto, it's up to that person to provide evidence for his belief, not me.

Also, would you say I require faith to say there's no teapot orbiting Pluto, or would just plain old common sense be good enough? I think there's no difference between my teapot example and the Christian God. I don't think it's fair to say I require faith when I say neither exists.

We do agree about science, evolution, and probably a million other things. It's too bad some God believers give religion a bad reputation when they are anti-science. When science conflicts with religion, it would be better for religion to be more flexible, because science will never try to accommodate religion. Scientists are only interested in finding the truth, they are not going to accommodate ancient books like the Bible.

By the way you might enjoy this video about faith. I put the website in my URL box -
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/08/dear_god.php

Hi Mike

The issue is deeper than yuor having faith that there's no teapot orbiting Pluto in spite of a lack of evidence. You and I share a belief that we can use the scientific method to find the truth, but there cannot be any evidence for such. "What???!!!??", you surely are screaming by now. Of course we have tons of evidence that science can give us the truth, we have hundreds of years of scientific and technological advance in support of the efficacy of the scientific method! But if you *make* that argument you reason circularly, assuming that evidence (the evidence of scientific success) can bring you knowledge to prove that evidence can provide you knowledge.

Now of course science *can* provide us with knowledge--you and I both know it. But our knowledge wasn't derived from reason and therefore is a matter of faith. I would say I similarly know that God exists, and I expect that most people in the world agree God exists, even if there is much disagreement on God's character.

your friend
Keith

hi keith.

There's a much higher percentage of atheists in Japan and Europe. I also noticed that, in both Japan and all of Europe except Turkey, there's a much higher percentage of people who accept evolution. I think science is easier to understand for atheists. Of course there are exceptions, some religious people, like yourself, have no problem accepting evolution. But I think religion usually just gets in the way of understanding how the world really works.

I don't think I understood your statement about knowledge being a matter of faith. What knowledge are you talking about? If something has a lot of evidence, like for example evolution, then faith is not really required, is it? I think faith is only required for things that are impossible, that have no evidence at all, for example all the miracles Christians and Muslims believe in. I don't believe in any miracles. So what do I need faith for? Faith is a religious word because it's only necessary for religion. When scientists don't know the answer to some question, they just say we don't know the answer. They don't invent gods to explain anything, so they don't need faith.

I'm curious, what, if any, miracles do you believe in, and how do you justify these beliefs? I say miracles have never happened, and never will happen, and I don't require faith to say that. Miracles are just too ridiculous to consider.

By the way, did you check out that video? That video shows brainwashed children, brainwashed into believing in gods, and the result at the end of the video was thousands being killed on 9/11/2001. I just don't think religion is good for anything but misery and violence.

Also, Keith, I forgot to ask, do you have heaven and hell beliefs? These beliefs especially I have a big problem with. All religious beliefs seem to be extremely anti-science to me, but these beliefs about a soul, whatever that is, surviving after a human dies, and then going somewhere, and then the soul converts back into the dead human, all this is just incredible nonsense to me, yet millions believe it. For example the Muslims who attacked us on 9/11/2001 believed in life after death, didn't they?

Hello again Keith. I thought you might be interested in this definition of faith I found:

faith: the process of non-thinking

Keith,

The creation/evolution debate is not trivial or insignificant, it is foundational. If God did not create the universe, then 1. Jesus was a fraud and a liar, so whatever Jesus taught does not matter. 2. There is no such thing as sin. And we don't need to be saved from something that does not exist. 3. Morality is really meaningless; but if we want to pretend that morality is real, it is up to us to define it.
I could go on, but there is no need.

It is irrational for an evolutionist to claim to be a Christian. It is illegitimate to say that God created the universe by evolution. There is nothing in the Bible that would support such a belief. There is no room in evolution for Christianity, and no room in Christianity for evolution. You must choose. And you have. Sadly, you have chosen poorly.

Mike,

If there is no God and the universe is all there is, what reason do you have for arguing for evolution?

If evolution is true, then what difference does it make what we believe, or whether we believe anything?

john g.

"The universe does not have to come from something." Are you sure about that? Do you mean something can come from nothing? If you can prove that, there is probably a Nobel prize with your name on it.

You had no idea that the the rest of the Bible depends upon Genesis? Now that I can believe!

If Genesis is not true, then why do we need salvation? What do we need to be saved from? And why should we care about "social justice"?

Gary,

First of all, how are you? How are things up there in the tall and pine covered? Everything is going well for you I trust.
I agree completely with you Gary when you say that God created the Universe. He did. I've always liked Rene Descartes "Watchmaker" thesis. It basically states that creation is proof of the creator. Someone had to make that watch and if that watch is indeed an intricate and wondrous machine then what of the being that created it. I think of the universe as that watch. What an incredible machine it is. If that is so then what of the watchmaker? You once mentioned that you like to stand outside at night and watch the stars and given where you live I imagine the view is quite spectacular. When I was a boy, I went on a camping trip into the Sangre del Cristo Mountains in New Mexico. I will never forget that first night that I looked up into the sky. It was nothing short of breath taking. I truly felt the presence of God. Where we differ is in how long we believe that it took God to make those stars but we both agree that God did indeed make them and all of the rest of the Universe.

Gary,

No scientist ever claimed the universe came from nothing. They don't know the answers to everything and they probably never will, but that's no reason to invent supernatural magicians.

Evolution only explains how new species appeared after life started, evolution has nothing to do with the creation of the universe, but I agree God did not create it. I also think these 3 statements you made are correct (I know you don't think they're correct):

1. Jesus was a fraud and a liar, so whatever Jesus taught does not matter.

2. There is no such thing as sin. And we don't need to be saved from something that does not exist.

3. Morality is really meaningless; but if we want to pretend that morality is real, it is up to us to define it.

What Jesus taught about morality, humans already knew. Jesus didn't invent morality. Humans can be moral without beliefs in invisible supernatural magicians, and humans can be much happier without this ridiculous need to be saved.

Gary, I agree completely with this statement you made: "It is irrational for an evolutionist to claim to be a Christian."

The more a person understands science, the more the God who exists only in his head becomes unnecessary.

Mike- you and Gary come from two completely different viewpoints, and I can argue against both.

However, what good would that do?

I am a scientist, and a Christian. The more I learn, the more I realize that the two are VERY much compatible- the way I look at things, Scientists are just exploring "how God did things". Indeed, through science (specifically physics), I can argue for both Evolution AND an active, involved God. My viewpoint is that the understanding of Evolution is NECESSARY for a true, mature Christian faith. There isn't enough room here for going into this in any detail, so I would suggest Dr. Kenneth Miller's Book "Finding Darwin's God". He has an excellent discussion of this whole topic.

Like myself (and quite a few other scientists I know), Dr. Miller is both Christian and scientist. He is an evolutionary microbiologist-and the person who regularly blows holes in "intelligent design".

Bob Bowers, I have tremendous respect for Ken Miller, for his efforts to promote the teaching of evolution in public schools. I know he is a Catholic, and I know he does not want anyone telling his children they have to choose between God and evolution.

Even though I disagree with Dr. Miller and yourself about religion, I respect both of you, and I wish I had half the scientific knowledge you both have.

To be honest, I don't understand how the same person could have both an excellent understanding of science, and still believe in miracles and/or God. But everybody is different, and that's what makes the world interesting.

Hi Mike

You wrote: If something has a lot of evidence, like for example evolution, then faith is not really required, is it? I think faith is only required for things that are impossible, that have no evidence at all...I don't believe in any miracles. So what do I need faith for?

KEITH: Let me try to explain the point I was making. You believe that reason and rationality and evidence is a way to find the truth (I do too). But *why* do you believe that? Not because you've verified that belief by reason or rationality or evidence, because that would be circular reasoning. Therefore our belief that reason/rationality/evidence is a way to truth is something we believe in spite of the fact we can't test that belief by reason/rationality/evidence. What else should we call that but faith?

MIKE: Also, Keith, I forgot to ask, do you have heaven and hell beliefs? These beliefs especially I have a big problem with. All religious beliefs seem to be extremely anti-science to me, but these beliefs about a soul, whatever that is, surviving after a human dies, and then going somewhere, and then the soul converts back into the dead human, all this is just incredible nonsense to me, yet millions believe it. For example the Muslims who attacked us on 9/11/2001 believed in life after death, didn't they?

KEITH: I do believe in life after death, and I don't see it as any more nonsensical than the idea than wave/particle duality or space/time curvature. The 9-11 terrorists believed in life after death; on the other hand Stalin agreed with you about life after death. I suppose there's bad guys with all kinds of beliefs.

My belief about hell? I lean toward what is called "universal reconciliation" or UR. Here's what that means. Without Christ none of us can be reconciled to God, our sin prevents us from reconciliation but Christ is the cure. So (we believe) in the end everyone will accept Christ. Now this perhaps understandibly might be seen as narrow-minded--I believe *my* religion is the true religion even though there's so many non-christian religious believers who are just as convinced of their beliefs as I am of mine. And I patronizingly tell the others they will eventualy agree with *me*. I offer this as defense:

1. By definition of "belief" I think my beliefs are true--if I didn't think they were true they wouldn't be my beliefs. That's the same for everyone who believes anything. So it seems unfair to accuse me of being any more arrogant than anyone else.

2. Surely you would agree that IF Christ is the very God of the universe who loves us all enough to sacrifice himself to save us from self-inflicted damage our sin causes, THEN no sincere seeker after love and truth would knowlingly reject Christ. And if God never punished anyone for honest ignorance, if he made sure that every honest seeker after truth found that truth--"seek and you shall find" said Christ--then the Christ-requirement for salvation is not unfair. IF Christianity is true, surely you agree that those things WOULD be true. I believe they are true, so whaty choice do I have?

your friend
Keith

Frank,

I am well. I hope you are. I am sorry that we disagree on the Creation.

Do you believe that Adam was a real man, or a myth?

Mike A.

Why should you care about this discussion? If evolution is true and the Bible is false, then none of our lives have any meaning and it makes no difference what is taught in school or even if we have school.

If there is no God, then there is such thing as morality and it makes no differece what we believe or how we behave. It matters not whether we live or die.

Dr. Miller's last chapter in his book has an excellent explanation on how a Living, Active God can be involved in reality. It is scientifically sound, and an explanation I agree with totally.

As far as Dr. Miller goes (and many of the other scientists who are Christian), I cannot say as to their own personal experiences. My own faith is experiential.. I've experienced miracles and the Presence of God directly. In spite of the hatred and violence I and my wife have experienced at the hands of fundamentalists and others of their ilk, I remain committed to Christ... something in my heart tells me that Christ is True, just as scientific discoveries (ie evolution, electrical theory, etc) are True. If anything, I am more dedicated to TRUTH than anything else.

Indeed, there may be PROOF that a Creator exists... I've read several articles on patterns found in the cosmic background radiation (from the Big Bang)... there seems to be a message encoded there!!!

I'm not that strong on this area of physics, so my explanation may be lacking in a lot of details (or even in error in some ways).

Wouldn't it be really wild if the same science that demonstrates Evolution to be true, also demonstrates that there is a Creator???

Gary,

Doing pretty well thank you. I am sorry to that we disagree but how about we agree to disagree. I would really be saddened if sectarian differences kept us from being friends.
As for Adam and Eve, no I do not believe that they existed as individuals. The Book of Genesis says for example "that Cain went down to the land of Nod and took himself a wife." Where did she come from? I believe that Adam and Eve are allegories that represent the human race as it was at that time. I also believe that at that point the Divine Spark within humankind blossomed and humankind came to know God. They were the first to really feel the same thing we feel when we look up at the stars at night. It was then that we truly became the Children of God.
As for Original Sin, I believe that the Serpent began the process of corruption by introducing fear into the human heart. Now fear in and of itself is not necessarily bad. It is the giving into that fear that completed the Fall. The story of Cain and Abel is the perfect metaphor of that. Cain was afraid that his brother Abel was held in higher esteem than him. The fear in Cain turned to hatred and Cain slew his brother. The first murder was also the first hate crime. I've often speculated what the actual sin of Cain really was. I'm guessing that it was the first time a group of people attacked and slew another group of people over differences in religious beliefs. It began a long, dark and bloody history of holy wars.
God sent Jesus to earth to show us the way out of the pit of Fear and Hate. Jesus died to show us that we can also triumph over fear and hate and even death itself. Jesus showed us the way and showed us that it worked. It is a hard and difficult path to travel but it is the Path out of Darkness.
Anyway, Gary, that is what I believe. On a different note, since this year is the 40th Anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek, I was wondering if you were a science fiction fan. Take care. God's blessings on you and yours.

Frank,

Did you know that in the gospel according to Luke (chapter 3) there is a geneology that goes all the way back to Adam? If Adam was not a real man, how would that be possible?

If you believe that Genesis is myth, there is no logical reason to think the rest of the Bible is any different. If Genesis is myth, it's all myth. Genesis is the foundation upon which the Bible sits. If Genesis is fiction, none of the Bible is credible as history. And in order for Christianity to be true, it must be based in history, in real life. If it is only a metaphor, it is worthless.

Gary, would you rather drive people from Christ, rather than encourage them?

I hate to burst your bubble- but only fundamentalists like you think like that- and it is worse than hubris to claim that if people don't think like you, they are not Christians, or that their beliefs do not make sense. Much greater thinkers (with regards to religion) than you or I are regulars on this SIG. They do NOT think like that. One of the professors I know, Dr. James Strange (Biblical Archaeologist and distinguished professor of religion) calls that form of thinking the "All or Nothing theory". It's been disproven so many times, yet people blindly follow it.

As far as Adam and Eve.... I understand that the words that translate to the names mean "Man" and "Woman". I may be wrong on this one, but it makes good sense.

Bob,

The truth disproves your little theories, notions and ideas, and that is why you don't like it.

If you, or your Dr. Strange(love), knew anything at all about the Bible, you would know that in order for the rest of the Bible to make sense, Genesis must be historically accurate and Adam and Eve had to be real people. You might as well hang a sign around your neck that says "I'm ignorant".

Hello Gary.

Bob Bowers and others would probably disagree with me, but I think you are correct Gary.

I think if a person does not believe every single word in Genesis, if a person does not translate Genesis exactly as it is written, then there is no reason to believe anything else in the Bible.

Now you Gary won't like what I will now say. I think, actually I know, everything in Genesis is not only completely incorrect, it's also completely ridiculous. And to be honest, I can't understand how an educated and sane adult could believe any of it.

Now that I have probably made both sides of this debate mad at me, I guess I'm done now.

Mike A.

While I am convinced that what you believe is wrong, irrational, and unsupported by the facts, at least you seem to understand what "theistic evolutionists" apparently do not: that Christianity and evolution are incompatible.

Evolution contradicts every idea in Genesis and the rest of the Bible; creation, sin, judgement, redemption, and all the rest.

For Christianity to be true, Genesis must be true. And not just true in some allegorical way, but historically true.

Your belief, that life evolved from simple to more complex forms, by chance and with no purpose or designer, is really a fantasy without a shread of evidence to support it.

Gary,

Again I agree with you. It's amazing how much we have in common.

Many Christians, including the Catholic biologist Ken Miller, who I greatly respect, does not want anyone telling his children they have to choose between God and evolution. But I think people who accept both religion and evolution are lying to themselves. God was invented for many reasons, but probably the most important reason to believe in God is to be able to explain how we all got here. If a person thinks science can explain how we got here, that person has eliminated God's most important job.

I even agree with part of what you said in your last paragraph - "Your belief, that life evolved from simple to more complex forms, by chance and with no purpose or designer, is really a fantasy without a shread of evidence to support it."

There is no purpose to evolution. Natural selection depends only on which animals are able to survive long enough to become parents. And there is no designer directing it. You are correct about many things happening by chance, but I don't think it's correct to call Natural Selection something that happens by random chance. It's not really decided by chance or luck. It's decided by who is the animal best able to survive. Natural Selection is also very slow. It takes a long time for new species to appear. From the day life started until we got here, it took almost 4,000 Million years.

Biologists would disagree with your claim about the evidence for evolution. But I will let the Christians here explain that to you. Many of them are scientists who know way more about science than I do.

I enjoyed reading your comments. Thanks.

A piece of literature does not necessarily need to be historically and scientifically accurate throughout, in order to be useful, instructive, and trustworthy. For it to have those qualities, it only needs to be historically and scientifically accurate throughout if that was its purpose. Neither "Lord of the Flies", nor the story of the Boy who Cried Wolf, nor the epic of Beowulf nor the legends of King Arthur, are historically and scientifically accurate throughout. But this does not by itself impugn their usefulness for teaching and instruction in other areas (in some cases, worldviews; in others, morals; etc). They only need to be true to what they were meant to be, and none of them were meant to be historically and scientifically accurate compositions.

It is the same with each and every piece of literature comprising the Bible, including Genesis. None of them were meant to be historically and scientifically accurate throughout according to modern standards, because they could not have been. Modern science and historiography, and the cultural expectation we have that literature should conform to such, are Enlightenment inventions with prototypical roots in Greek and Roman rationalism. In the ancient Jewish world, and certainly the ancient Hebrew world out of which Genesis came, science and historiography as such were as foreign as the genre of apocalypse is to us today. By the way, the same is true of every other culture outside of the Greek/Roman/Enlightenment/us strand.

If instead we look at how those cultures actually treated the recording of information which we would today want to categorize under the labels "science" and "history", we find instead that they freely intermingled fact, anecdote, parable, fable, moralizing, and so on. That was their way, that was what they valued, that was how they communicated. The results were proto-scientific and proto-historical traditions and documents that seem to have been viewed by those cultures as far more valuable for their moral and thematic components, than for their historicity or scientific accuracy. In a sense, they took their literature literally while at the same time they did not.

I see no reason to exempt the Bible from this. Throughout Christian tradition, we have the concept of God condescending to become incarnate in finite, limited, accommodated form. The Word was made flesh and lived among us as a simple man. The human witness to that Word, in scripture, is communicated using all the language, vocabulary, and conceptual framework of the time and place. It is utterly consistent with this tradition, to acknowledge Genesis in the same manner, as culturally conditioned. (Whether God verbally inspired the Bible, accommodating as he did so; or whether the Bible is instead a human witness to God, and thus naturally the way it is; or whether the Bible is somewhere in between these positions, is not a factor. Because all such theories of inspiration can be consistent with that acknowledgement.)

As moderns, this may not be what we would like. But Genesis is the ancient Hebrew witness to us, not the other way around. How could it be any other way, given our Christian tradition of incarnation. It is ironic that fundamentalists and atheists - polar opposites in so many other ways - don't seem to appreciate this. I am not surprised at all by their agreement.

Best regards,

Scott

Scott,

If you are right about the Bible, how can you be certain Jesus actually lived as a man, died on a Roman cross, and rose from the dead?

The Bible is a collection of literature of a variety of genres. There is no more need to assign the whole collection to one genre, than there was to assign everything in your old high school literature textbook to the same genre. There is no more need to assign the same degree of historicity to the whole thing, than there was to assign the same degree of historicity to your lit textbook's excerpts from, say, Samuel Pepys diary on the one hand, and Dante's "Inferno" on the other.

To ascertain the degree of historicity in each text is a matter of comparative literary analysis (eg, what other texts of already-known genre and historicity is this similar to), cultural study (eg, what kind of culture did the text arise from and how much did historicity matter to that culture), and external historical or scientific corroboration (eg, for those things stated in the text which should reasonably have left evidence behind, is that evidence found). On all of these counts, the gospels, and the apostolic testament to the basic gospel story found in the epistles, suggest there is greater historicity in the basic gospel story than in Genesis 1-11 (though, mind you, the gospels are never as historically-precise and accurate as a modern biography would be).

Scott

Scott,

I hold a traditional Baptist view of the Bible. Because I believe the Scriptures were inspired of God, I believe that when the Bible talks about history, that history is accurate, even though there may be details of certain events that are not recorded. The historical precision of Scripture is at least as accurate as any modern biography, even if it might lack the detail. Since God knows what happened, He would be incompetent to record something as history and have it be inaccurate.

And that is where we differ. You would regard God as incompetent, if he were to be involved with any scripture that seemed to modern eyes to be striving to relate history, yet was historically less than wholly accurate. I would not. I would regard God instead as, at least, accommodating to human freedom, and incarnating in human witness, if he were to do so - much as he did in the form of Jesus Christ. Or much as Paul says he did, in becoming all things to all men - ie, so that everyone might be reached in their situations, without distraction by things irrelevant, uninteresting, unfamiliar and foreign to them.

Further, if we accept the idea of scripture as free human witness to inspired concepts, rather than as the product of verbal plenary inspiration, we gain additional warrant for seeing Genesis in this way. If God permitted scripture to develop out of human freedom - a witness responding to God's emerging revelation of ideas and events within the ancient community - then it should not surprise us to find those concepts embedded and transported within a culturally-bounded conceptual framework (just as everyone would concede the Bible is at least transported within human language).

But if we accept verbal plenary inspiration anyway, it is still possible to "justify" God in the face of Genesis (and other examples of so-called biblical errancy), on grounds of God's accommodation to the original community for purposes of clear, contextualized communication to them. As described in the first paragraph above.

Scott

There will never be a lighted path too Gods house, (that has many rooms) if you want to get to heaven you must have faith and believe in god. Intelligent design is a lighted path. Just like if there was a fossil trail leading to show that man evolved from the sea that would be a lighted path to evolution. God will not let that happen the doubt will always be there for both. But in my opine all science will ever show with all there carbon dating is when God shortened the day on earth; as an idea if Noah was alive before the day was shortened to earth years he would have been all most a billion years old by earth years or carbon dating years.
2 Peter 8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.[a]
Matthew 12:38Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you." 39He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah Why should God give you a lighted path, God gave us Jesus Christ and our ancestors hung Him on a cross and killed him. God has given written word, as in the Bible, that hardly any one reads. Instead you worship false prophets and give them great wealth. You even listened to false prophets and voted in a President that hates the poor. You are trying to buy your way into heaven it can not be done. HELLO HELL.

Scott,

If I told you that 3 + 3= 7, or that John F.Kennedy was president of the U.S. in 1970, you would regard me as incompetent. But if God told you the same things, you would regard God as "accomodating to human freedom, and incarnating in human witness". Or "becoming all things to all men". I find no sanity in such a view.

The idea that the Bible need not be trustworthy when it talks about history is nonsense. God invented time and works in history. Jesus said, "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?"

Gary writes about how the Bible is the inerrant and inspired word of God and that the Genesis account of creation is an accurate historical account. I wonder if Gary is aware that there are two very different creation accounts in the Bible. These are from the King James Version.

Genesis 1:20-23: "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day." Then, Genesis 1:26, 31: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."

Thus, God created the animals on the fifth day and then creating man on the sixth day.

However, Genesis 2:8 "And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed." This says that God has already created the Garden of Eden and put man there. But then, Genesis 2:18-19: "And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof."

This is a completely different account, where God created the Garden of Eden first, put man in the Garden, and then LATER created all the animals AFTER creating man. Within the first two chapters, we see inconsistency in the Bible.

But there is more.

Genesis 1:27 reads: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Sounds like God created man and woman at the same time. However, Genesis 2:21-22 reads: "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man." Thus, in Genesis One, we read that God created man and woman at the same time, but in Genesis Two, we have God creating man first and then later on removing a rib to create the woman. By the way, basic anatomy shows that men and women have the exact same number of rib bones, and that man has the exact same number of rib bones on each side.

Another example: Genesis 1:20 reads: "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven." However, Genesis 2:19 reads in part: "And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air." In Genesis One, it appears that the birds sprung from the waters (dare I say a biblical endorsement of evolution and common descent?) while Genesis Two reads that the birds were created out from the ground.

Another example: Genesis 1:2, 8 reads: "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day." Then, Genesis 1:9-10, 13 reports: "And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day." But then, Genesis 2:4-6 reads: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." So here, in Genesis One, the earth was created on the second day and was covered with water, and dry land was not created until the third day. However, in Genesis Two, the earth was all dry land first, and was then watered later.

Tony Genesis 1 is when he made them Genesis 2 is how he made them

Gary, if you stated out of the blue that 3 + 3 = 7, or Kennedy was president in 1970, I would indeed regard you as incompetent - because I would know in advance that (a) you were simply trying to communicate accurate math and history and (b) everyone in your time and culture already knew those statements to be false. Merely whether I knew those statements to be false or not, would actually be irrelevant - nobody considers Isaac Newton and the other Enlightenment physicists to be incompetent because they were wrong (we now know) about relativity.

If I had reason to believe, on the other hand, that you weren't trying to communicate accurate math and history - say, instead, I had reason to believe that you were writing poetry or a science-fiction story - I might have reason to exonerate you, or even consider you quite competent. It would depend on the context, how you used those statements and to what effect in advancing your real theme.

And if I furthermore knew that everyone among your hearers and readers at the time already incidentally believed that 3 + 3 = 7 and Kennedy was president in 1970, I would have even more reason to consider you a competent communicator of your real theme. You would just have been accommodating to incidental "common knowledge" at the time, in order to facilitate the real theme of your poetry or story (rather than distract from it with unimportant corrections to the "common knowledge"). It is what we do all the time when teaching people the basics, especially little children. We tell them what we know they need to know, using the conceptual framework they already have at hand, even when it contradicts reality in irrelevant ways.

So in Genesis, the real theme is true theology of God and man (not history or science), as opposed to false ANE (ancient Near Eastern) polytheistic mythology - all set in story form as was the custom of everybody at the time. In doing so, the story in Genesis is assembled from all the common cosmological motifs of the time (primordial ocean, solid sky, flat earth, waters above the sky, etc) - motifs which were all incidental to the real theme, motifs in which everybody already believed and thus were rendered receptive. And the assembly is done according to a careful literary framework - parallel triplets of days, etc - which underscores the majesty of God in the same way the architecture of a cathedral does. Genesis thus reveals its theology by communicating it in a manner which the people of the time would have found compelling and believable, rather than foreign and distracting. This is successful communication. It is only we today who are hung up on it.

Scott

Tony, Genesis 1 and 2 do indeed look inconsistent in detail, though it is hard to use that word (or any similar word) without sounding pejorative. In any case, as stories they no more need to be consistent in every detail than do Dante's "Inferno" and Milton's "Paradise Lost". They are related, complementary takes on the same inspired theology (the nature of God and man), coming in the form of different compositions (probably passed down through different traditions before being set into writing).

If we consider Genesis 1 and 2 to be exacting history, their apparent contradictions might be troubling and require various grammatical and interpretative contortions to resolve (such as the NIV's translation of Genesis 2:18). But if they are non-literal compositions, these problems vanish. Isn't it interesting that there is no historical record of anybody having really worried about the contradictions in Genesis 1 and 2 until the Enlightenment in Europe? (Apparently Philo and the early rabbis alluded a bit to the contradictions, but didn't give them much concern.) Perhaps that should tell us something about the myopia of our perspective.

Scott

Scott,

The ability to understand the Bible, as God intended it to be understood, is one of the things that separates believers from unbelievers.

Genesis is not poetry, nor science-fiction, nor allegory, nor myth, nor fable. Reading Genesis in any of those ways misses the meaning not only of Genesis, but leads to the misunderstanding of the rest of the Bible too.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply Scott. I made those posts about Genesis to make a point about the consequences of discussing scripture in general, and the concept of scripture being the sole authority on all matters in particular, with an evangelical, fundamentalist, or similar such biblical literalists. Monte's flippant response proves to me two things. One: when having discussions like this with someone who interprets the Bible literally, you leave the world of theology and enter the world of their personal interpretation that they apply to not only just the Bible, but also everything else under the stars. Two: you can give any passage of the Bible to 50 different people, and you will likely get 50 different interpretations. Some interpretations may be very similar with only minor differences in semantics, while some interpretations may be vastly different.

Biblical literalists typically see the Bible (defined herein as sheets of paper formally published and bound) as nothing more than a reference text. The real bible to them is the one that is in their own minds, and that such scripture says only what their preconceived conception of scripture says it does. Now, anyone who reads the Bible inevitably brings their own biases and theology to the words within Bible; this is simply human nature. However, biblical literalists take this step further: they set up a mental theological sieve, pour the words in the Bible through it, and expect everyone else to accept it exactly the same way that they do. That another person may hold opposing opinions and interpretations is beyond their grasp. Biblical literalists almost never use the Bible to teach anything within its proper context; they have their own principles, values, and (most importantly) PRECONCEIVED THEOLOGY and look to the Bible to support these.

When debating biblical literalists, looking at things logically will almost always get you nowhere, because many biblical literalists also tend to be anti-intellectual. I'm not saying that they are unintelligent. However, for the most part, those adherents to an inerrant and literal Bible in all matters both sectarian and non-sectarian tend to be suspicious of scholarship. They seem to think that if anyone has had too much formal training and education (especially those in the studies of philosophy or theology), that education and training will cause one to loose one's faith in the Bible.

These types of exchanges are never about discussing differences in faith. Biblical literalists never have any interest in discussing differences because ultimately, they consider anyone who is not a member of their particular church or sect as belonging to an apostate church, that those people are in dire need of salvation, and that it is up to the biblical literalists to save them. The arrogance displayed in Gary’s post where he says that "[t]he ability to understand the Bible, as God intended it to be understood, is one of the things that separates believers from unbelievers" lends proof to my hypothesis.

Tony,

I know you don't believe that every interpretation of the Bible is valid, if you did, there would be no point in your expressing your opinion.

Your charge that I am anti-intellectual is only true if you define intellectual as embracing a worldview that is anti-Biblical, or naturalistic. I believe one can be educated and still be a person with genuine, God-given faith.
My faith does not preclude having knowledge in a variety of subjects. But my faith does prevent me from embracing the philosophy of this world, as exemplified by naturalism, evolution, etc.

As for my having any interest in "saving" you, I have no such motivation.

Gary: you know nothing about me. I am Christian and I have no conflict whatsoever between my faith and science. I also have no problem whatsoever in accepting evolution as the foundational theory for the biological sciences.

Gary, you wrote earlier: "Did you know that in the gospel according to Luke (chapter 3) there is a geneology (sic) that goes all the way back to Adam? If Adam was not a real man, how would that be possible?"

I wonder if you really read your Bible thoroughly enough. Luke Chapter 3 (KJV) does indeed provide a complete genealogy that extends across 77 total generations from God to Adam, then to Abraham, then to King David, and all the way to Jesus. However, Matthew Chapter 1 (KJV) describes a vastly different genealogy having only 41 total generations that only goes as far back as Abraham. Why not all the way back to Adam? Maybe Matthew had information that suggested that Adam was not a real man from a historical standpoint. In fact, the only part of the two genealogies that is exactly correct are the generations extending between Abraham and King David; after that, the differences become rather glaring. Including King David, Luke's version has 43 generations that ends at Jesus. However, Matthew's version only has 28 generations that ends at Jesus. Also, there are hardly any of the same names present within the two conflicting genealogies. Something must have gotten badly lost in translation! However, the Bible is supposed to be totally inerrant! What gives?

There are also other discrepancies. In Matthew's text, Solomon is the son of King David, and independent historical sources seem to support this. However, in Luke's text, Nathan is the son of King David. So which one is correct? Furthermore, Matthew's text shows that Joseph (the foster-father of Jesus) is the son of Jacob, while Luke's text shows that Joseph is the son of Heli. If the Bible is the revealed word of God, it seems like Matthew and Luke did not receive the same talking points. So which one is correct? Both should be the same, if the Bible was truly inerrant.

Now, I realize that both authors are trying to historically link Jesus (as Messiah) to be from the same line as King David. However, the Bible also states, and the Christian faith holds, that Jesus was the Son of God who was conceived directly by the Holy Spirit through Mary (you know, that whole "virgin birth" thingy). So if God is the Father, wouldn't it have made more sense to the authors to demonstrate that it was Mary, and not Joseph, was descended from the House of David? If Joseph was nothing more than the foster father, who would care what family he descended from? The fact is that what we are reading are the prejudices of the times; that women were considered second class citizens.

I can't wait to read the spins on this one.

Gary wrote: "I believe one can be educated and still be a person with genuine, God-given faith."

Yes, and Dr. Kenneth Miller of Brown University is a great example of that. But again, he is a Catholic, and I know that all you evangelical Baptists out there consider the Catholic Church to be an apostate church anyway.

I've read enough about how you don't think that any of the scientific evidence supporting biological evolution is valid and that anyone who advocates such evidence are liars and false Christians (because you claim the two are utterly incompatible). So if you take offense at my implying that you are anti-intellectual, well...I'll just end my thought there.

Step right up who wants to have an ape for a great to millionth power grandpa what about a whale. Take your choice I choose God just so we don't get mad and start choosing how other people die.

Thank you, Monte, for validating my position about biblical literalists being anti-intellectual. Your post is right up there in having the same intelligent-thought value as a two-year-old's taunt on the playground.

Tony, Monte has never shown any indication of being a literalist before. I rather think that he is actually (and very subtly) poking AT literalism, especially their claim that we (people who recognise evolution as truth as well as Christ is the truth) cannot be Christians.

I find it rather fascinating, in a macabre sort of way. Since before Darwin, there has been a problem with literalism, and the idea of evolution came OUT OF the problem with a literal interpretation of scriptures. People observed things that did not "fit" what the scriptures said, and tried to explain them (and were excommunicated or called liars). Darwin's explanation of how evolution worked eventually caused a major reevaluation of the scriptures- actually going back to the thinking of the early church. The ironic part is that with all these years of evidence to the contrary, both from science and from theology, people still go back to literalism. I suspect because it is easier than trying to think for themselves.

So, literalists have reality, science, and theology going against them. Yet they persist.

If they weren't trying to force their religion (and ideas of religion) on the rest of us, I'd find it sad but funny.

By the way.. evolutionary theory is also the foundation for the social sciences. That is probably why they have become so effective.

(That is also a good part of the reason why the fundamentalist leadership wants to destroy (convert) the social sciences. They KNOW we can poke holes in their claims and expose the truth about them!)

Question If we evolved who threw the switch to get it started who made the switch. What came firt the chicken or the egg

Reasonable question, Monte. It sounds to me like you're arguing for is what is called Deistic evolution- and that is the viewpoint of many Scientists (including myself, by the way). It cannot be proven or disproven, but that is one of the primary aspects of religion/faith anyway. Dr. Miller has a great discussion of it in the last chapter of his book.

As far as what is first- well, there is a new breed of cats that first appeared in the northwest (I think the state of Washington). It is spotted, and is the result of a "random" genetic mutation. They are BEAUTIFUL! So the question is very similar- what came first with the new breed?

The egg, of course. That is where the mutation occured.

Changes like that start at the subatomic level- where quantum physics and quantum mechanics hold sway. At that level, nothing can be predicted, only probabilities can be estimated. It is a "wierd world" at that level- and as Dr. Miller so convincingly argues, a great big wide door for the activities of a Caring, Loving, active God.

So, when people listen, I tell them that they can both be the product of evolution AND the direct creation of a personal God.

I've NEVER read a convincing argument that disproves that idea- and from my understanding of both faith and science, it is impossible to do so!

Bob,

Christianity and evolution are two completely different and antagonistic views. They both cannot be true. Those who think they can both be "true" must put Christianity in a different category of "truth" that might be termed "pretend truth", or "make believe truth". But certainly you cannot believe in the historic truth of Christianity and also be an evolutionist. It is fundamentally dishonest to deny the historical truths of Christianity, which is what one must do in order to be an evolutioist, and still claim to be a Christian.

It depends on what you mean by historic truth, Gary. Parts of the Bible have been demonstrated to be accurate. Others have NOT... indeed, parts have been shown to NOT be true. You've seen discussion of the evidence here. You are demanding that I consider the Bible in terms of black or white- true or not-true. I reject that, because the whole subject is FAR, FAR more complex than you would like it to be and indeed does not fit reality at all!!! I look at the scriptures as the "early Fathers" did as well as most theologians have over the centuries- as lot a literal "how to manual" but as a record of the understanding of and experience of God. The Bible is a book about WHY, not HOW. It is about the relationship between God and humankind.

Indeed, if it wasn't for the relationship I have with the Father, your insistance would have helped drive me from Christianity long ago. You don't seem to understand that this sort of nonsense- and I repeat that- nonsense, is driving people away from God left and right. I've read (and have on my hard drive) an interesting and enlightening article written at the turn of the century, where a theologian predicted that people in general would start turning from God and the churches if people continously insisted on a literal interpretation of all scripture- which has been discounted for many generations. His description was not of a rejection of God or Christ, but a rejection of the blind refusal from certain "types" of Christians to consider reality and scientific discovery.

The theologian's predictions have come true, and EXACTLY for the reasons he mentioned.

I think that it was saint Polycarp who rebuked some early Christians who were starting to insist on fundamentalist interpretation of scripture. He said that this was making the Church the laughingstock of the rest of the world and they were being offensive and counterproductive (in so many words). So it is with modern fundamentalism. They, in their insistance on a literal interpretation of scripture (in spite of the incredible amount of evidence to the contrary), have forced the shift to modernism and then post-modernist.

Consider this- the hammering and "preaching" you and the other fundamentalists have done have tended to damage my faith in God and Jesus and pushed me back from Them. Scientific discoveries, on the other hand, have strengthened my faith and drawn me closer to God. The things I have learned from my discipline (anthropology), which by the way is largely based upon the principles of evolutionary theory, has made me more aware of other people and their needs. I have become MORE Christian (instead of less Christian like you would like to think) because of what I have learned. I care MORE about people. I also care more about their relationship with the Creator.

You see, Gary... I can understand how God created all things, THROUGH evolution. My studies strengthen that.

At the same time, I see the damage done by fundamentalism EVERY DAY to the souls and lives of people. I SEE people being driven away from God and Jesus by the stupid (and I repeat STUPID) ignorance-based and hate-based preaching of fundamentalists. I deal with the false and denigrating attitudes towards the poor and hurting. I also see the power structures that support this, and those structures do NOT serve God, but they DO SERVE Mammon.

Great post Bob! Unfortuately, such sound reasoning is going to be completely lost on a biblical literalist such as Gary. Recall what I wrote earlier about the folly of attempting to engage biblical literalists with arguments based upon reason, and how biblical literalists often tend to be greatly anti-intellectual.

Bob,

Parts of the Bible are untrue? Well, rather than study anthropology, you could be of much greater service to mankind (homo sapiens), if you would publish a Bible that was ALL true.

Maybe you could get Tony and Hander to be your co-editors, or even co-authors. They see themselves as "academics".
Copyright it and you might make a lot of money too. You claim to care a lot about people, don't you? What better way to show it?

I've often wondered whether Christian fundamentalists or similar such biblical literalists have ever made an effort to actually study the world's long history of religion or maybe even took a course in comparative religions. If not, they really should make the effort, and perhaps, they might learn how modern religious theology has grown out of many different long-past ancient religious teachings and texts. For example, go on to Google and run a search on topics such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Code of Hammurabi, or the Enuma Elish. You might be fascinated at what you might learn.

For example, the Epic of Gilgamesh is believed to be the oldest piece of literature, and its writings have been shown to have influenced other works of literature worldwide. It also includes a story about a worldwide flood, which many biblical scholars believe inspired the Genesis story of Noah and the flood. The Code of Hammurabi is another very ancient text of laws, and again, many biblical scholars believe was the inspiration behind Mosaic Law in the Old Testament. There also is the Enuma Elish, which has the oldest known written account about the creation of the world, and it was actually signed by its original author. The Enuma Elish was written many hundreds of years before Moses, yet its account nearly parallels the Genesis creation story, and again, many biblical scholars believe that this account was the inspiration for the author or authors of the Genesis account.

Nearly every major religion, both present and ancient past, each has its own creation stories that generally are very similar to one another. Typically only the names of the god or gods have been changed to reflect the theology of those particular times. In fact, the ancient Hebrews had often been conquered and forced to live in exile for long periods of time in ancient Mesopotamia. Without a doubt, their writings had been greatly influenced by such past foreign works of literature.

I would challenge all biblical literalists to do such diligence and learn about these stories and other aspects of religious history. After doing such research, take the time to really contemplate how religion has evolved over the thousands of years of written human history and relate what you have read to your present beliefs.

At that point if you choose to continue to believe as you do now, that's fine. But at least you might have at least gained some insight as to why other Christians (who also hold their religious beliefs to be equally important and valid) might think differently than you do in matters of faith.

But, if you deliberately choose to avoid the quest for knowledge of both history and science outside the Bible, you severely limit your knowledge to what you find in only one book.

The human mind is like a blank computer chip, and you can store on to it any information that you choose. If you make a conscious decision to limit what you can learn, so be it. However, by making that decision you greatly limit yourself to the vast world of accumulated knowledge that is available by either the click of a mouse or a trip down to your local library.

You do no useful service to yourself to limit the scope of your knowledge to one ancient book, and you will only continue to embarrass yourself by trying to argue with people who have studied thousands of books and texts within the fields of biological science, cosmology, anthropology, geology, philosophy, and the history of religion, to name but a few. You biblically-based arguments come off as terribly ignorant and, dare I say, anti-intellectual.

I have no doubt that Gary and other biblical literalists are good and decent people who deeply value their religious beliefs and use those beliefs to provide them the moral compasses that guide their lives. But when you start mixing your theological beliefs and interpretations of scripture up, intellectually, with people who have spent their whole lives in the rational pursuit of academic learning and the sciences, your arguments will be treated with ridicule and disdain.

Bob,

I have a title for your new all-true bible: "The Evolutionary Bible". Subtitle: "The Bible God might have tried to inspire, if only he had known about the Enlightenment".

You can replace Genesis with "The Book of Darwin".

Why should I? That would be doing a DISSERVICE to mankind, and not in any way helpful!

Indeed, I am a flawed human being (like yourself), therefore anything I write would be flawed.

JUST LIKE THOSE WHO PENNED THE MANY BOOKS OF THE BIBLE.

If you look at the Bible as direct commandments from God, you do the authors a disservice. However, if you look at it properly, as the record of a people's experience with the Living God, then you start to understand. That means that you recognize errors, you see where the people did right and where they failed- and yes, you also get things wrong yourself in trying to understand.

You also realize that they were doing things according to their understanding of God, and that would explain some of the really horrible things that happened that are recorded in the Bible. That is why Teyose (Jesus) is so significant- he was Emmanuel, God With Us. He was Perfection Personified! It is no wonder that the disciples, who knew Him personally, often did not understand Him!!!

Tony,

Ridicule and disdain from people who know a lot of things that aren't true is not a problem.

By the way, I am impressed by your level of arrogance and condescension. You are very accomplished in those areas.

Gary, I'd argue further with you, but this just isn't very sporting; it's the equivalent of shooting at fish in a bucket and calling that fishing.

By the way, what about those two very different genealogies in Matthew and Luke? Are you ever going to get around explaining how your literal and inerrant Bible got that all screwed up?

While I don't hold to the formal doctrine of inerrancy, certainly not in the way that someone like Gary would understand it, I am uncomfortable with language like "parts of the Bible are not true". I know what you mean, Bob, but your language is a little open to misinterpretation. The question isn't truth, its the kind of truth. "Lord of the Flies" and Einstein's 1906 relativity paper are both true, but they are different kinds of truth about different things.

The kind of truth Genesis 1-11 teaches is theological. That the world is the creation of one god. That everything in the world is creaturely, that is, created by, and subject to, that God. That mankind is in special relationship with God, in a way no other creature is. That God is moral, personal and just, and we are meant to be likewise. That we fail in this, and though God grieves and judges, he continues in special relationship with us anyway. And a number of other things; I'm sure it would be difficult to exhaust.

These truths are in marked contrast to the pagan ANE mythologies they were set against. At the same time Genesis uses the particular cosmological and historical motifs of ANE legend and myth (a great primordial ocean split above and below by a solid sky, with the flat earth suspended in the waters beneath; a great flood survived by one family and the animals they brought along; etc) it re-presents those motifs in a way that teaches a completely different worldview than Enuma Elish and Gilgamesh and Atrahasis.

In Enuma Elish, there are many warring, dysfunctional, amoral gods, the world is created out of the wreckage of their infighting, and mankind is created to be their slaves, without special relationship or moral expectation. In Gilgamesh, the flood is brought on by the gods because mankind has simply become too populous and noisy. The rank difference between the theology taught in such ANE legend and myth, and the theology taught in Genesis, stands out.

So the kinds of theological truth embodied in the stories of Genesis, first broke into the world through those stories, using the incidental cosmological and historical motifs God's people already accepted from surrounding ANE superpowers. The stories used those motifs because that was what the people were accustomed to. And accommodating to the incidental things people are accustomed to - even to the point of incarnating as man - is what God does.

In the same way, if there were to be a similar breaking-in of new inspired truth today, couched in creation language, I am sure that creation language would be expressed in terms of the cosmological motifs we have today - deep space and time, planets, galaxies, Big Bang, etc. I am convinced of this, even if future scie