Consequences of believing in Evolution

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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clue
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Consequences of believing in Evolution

Post #1

Post by clue »

There has already been a thread started to discuss specific evidences for/against 2 theories of the origin of life.

I wanted to aproach this topic from a slightly different angle. And my arguments are mainly targeted to a Christian audience, although a belief in any kind of a good higher being might suffice. I will not be presenting any scientific evidence because of my belief that science is limited and can be manipulated for ulterior motives. Anyway, there has already been a thread dedicated to that so you can go read that one if you are so inclined.

So here we go. If you are a Christian and you also believe in Evolution, how do you harmonize Evolution with your idea of:
1. a good God;
2. an honest God;
3. the sanctity of human life above other life forms;
3. the doctrine of sin and the fall;
4. the redemption we find through a Savior.

For I submit that you cannot
1. believe in a good God if he created death, disease, and bloodshed from the beginning;
2. believe in an honest God since he didn't really tell us in a forthright manner what exactly he did;
3. believe that a human life is any more valuable than a chrysanthemum's life;
4. believe in sin or the fall since there wasn't a real Adam and Eve;
5. believe that Jesus died for our sins because there wasn't any sin in the first place.
Last edited by clue on Tue May 04, 2004 11:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

adherent
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Post #11

Post by adherent »

Atheist means that you don't believe there is a God. Christians however believe the one true God. So how could one be both atheist and christian? Isn't that an oxymoron.

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Quarkhead
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Post #12

Post by Quarkhead »

adherent wrote:Atheist means that you don't believe there is a God. Christians however believe the one true God. So how could one be both atheist and christian? Isn't that an oxymoron.
In a strict sense, one could claim the label of "christian" as meaning "one who follows the teachings of Christ." I would certainly accept the label "atheist Christian," although I am a practitioner of Zen Buddhism. I do consider myself to be a Christian, in the sense described. I think too many people (particualrly too many religious people) tend to seek ways to define themselves based on exclusionary principles, rather than on inclusive principles. Because we cannot know what happens after death, or whether there is a jolly dude in the sky, or a somber one-eyed warrior waiting in Valhalla, my focus is on acts, ethics, this world and the people in it.

Sorry for the digression. As for the topic - there are no consequences. A person may safely believe whatever they like. I would guess that the majority of Christians believe in evolution to some degree or another. And, for the record here, it is unfair to posit creationism and evolution as opposites. Evolution describes a process; creationism (though it has many interpretations) is primarily concerned with beginnings. The two are by no means mutually exclusive, for Christians or anyone of any religion which describes a "supernatural" beginning.

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Post #13

Post by adherent »

Wa-wait... you just called yourself a atheist christian and a zen buddhist. you certainly are a man of many beliefs! Yes, one could define being a Christian as "on who follows the teachings of Christ". But the teachings of Christ do not concur with atheism. Alas, i do not know anything about zen buddhism so I won't make any conclusions now. Teachings of Christ says there is God. Atheists however say there isn't a God at all. There you have an oxymoron.

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ENIGMA
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Post #14

Post by ENIGMA »

trei wrote:A few months ago I went to the best talk I have ever heard on the general subject of evolution. The guy who was giving the talk decided to speak, rather from a scientific point of view - which would go over most of his audience's head, mine included - or a strictly "the bible says" point of view, but rather a sociological and political point of view.

He noted that the "theory of evolution" has a really unprecedented popularity for a *scientific theory* and has really imbibed itself in our culture and thinking like no other, and has become a vital part of the average western person's worldview. Why, he asked, did this happen?

Now I heard the talk a while ago, so I don't remember all of it. Basically the social and political conditions where "evolution" came into its own was around the time of (if I remember correctly) Nazi germany, when propaganda was the political tool of the day. And *evolution* was widely used by politicians of that era to try justify themselves. So *evolution* was pumped out as propaganda, rather than any other scientific idea which stays mostly with scientists for a long time, everyone fights about it because they think their own ideas are better, eventually it trickles out into popular literature and school syllabuses and maybe some dramatic evidence comes up to point one way or another.

Anyway, I don't remember many of the facts, which is a pity. I should look into it a bit and perhaps come back with some more hard info!
Well, since you decided to open the door....
"And finally we were also the first to point the people on any large scale to a danger which insinuated itself into our midst - a danger which millions failed to realize and which will nonetheless lead us all into ruin - the Jewish danger. And today people are saying yet again that we were 'agitators.' "I would like here to appeal to a greater than I, Count Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag that his feeling 'as a man and a Christian' prevented him from being an anti-Semite. I SAY: MY FEELING AS A CHRISTIAN POINTS ME TO MY LORD AND SAVIOUR AS A FIGHTER. IT POINTS ME TO THE MAN WHO ONCE IN LONELINESS, SURROUNDED ONLY BY A FEW FOLLOWERS, RECOGNIZED THESE JEWS FOR WHAT THEY WERE AND SUMMONED MEN TO THE FIGHT AGAINST THEM AND WHO, GOD'S TRUTH! WAS GREATEST NOT AS SUFFERER BUT AS FIGHTER. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and of adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before - the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago - a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people.
Then indeed when Rome collapsed there were endless streams of new German bands flowing into the Empire from the North; but, if Germany collapses today, who is there to come after us? German blood upon this earth is on the way to gradual exhaustion unless we pull ourselves together and make ourselves free!

And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress which daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see it work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week it has only for its wage wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people is plundered and exploited. "

[Adolf Hitler, Speech, Munich, April 12, 1922]
...and...
"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator.
By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work."

[Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people."

[Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance
with the will of the Almighty Creator."

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, p. 46]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
...and...
ATHEIST HALL CONVERTED
Berlin Churches Establish Bureau to Win Back Worshippers

Wireless to the New York Times.

BERLIN, May 13. - In Freethinkers Hall, which before the Nazi resurgence was the national headquarters of the German Freethinkers League, the Berlin Protestant church authorities have opened a bureau for advice to the public in church matters. Its chief object is to win back former churchgoers and assist those who have not previously belonged to any religious congregation in obtaining church membership.

The German Freethinkers League, which was swept away by the national
revolution, was the largest of such organizations in Germany. It had
about 500,000 members ..."

[New York Times, May 14, 1993, page 2, on Hitler's outlawing of Atheistic and Freethinking groups in Germany in the Spring of 1933, after the Enabling Act authorizing Hitler to rule by decree]
...and...
Image
This is the belt buckle of Nazi Army. The motto inscribed on it means "God With Us".
Source

Now, we can spend the next few pages calling each other Nazis or we can take note that "An evil person used it for blatant self promotion therefore it's evil" is fallacious reasoning.

....

Not too shabby for a first post...

8)

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Jose
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Post #15

Post by Jose »

Well, Enigma, that was pretty clear. It also seems to have stopped the thread in its tracks. I think I've done that to some threads, too.

You've made a Really Good Point about our ability to rationalize motivations for actions. The argument mentioned by trei is commonly used to argue that "evolution is evil because it led to Hitler's actions." Oddly, the anti-evolutionists seem not to bother citing the quotes that you gave us.

If only all of us had all of the resources in mind all at once...at least for this issue, we'd be able to dispense with the Hitler argument, because we'd all see that he was simply a wacko.

I'll try to wake up the thread again:
So here we go. If you are a Christian and you also believe in Evolution, how do you harmonize Evolution with your idea of:
1. a good God;
2. an honest God;
3. the sanctity of human life above other life forms;
3. the doctrine of sin and the fall;
4. the redemption we find through a Savior.

For I submit that you cannot
1. believe in a good God if he created death, disease, and bloodshed from the beginning;
2. believe in an honest God since he didn't really tell us in a forthright manner what exactly he did;
3. believe that a human life is any more valuable than a chrysanthemum's life;
4. believe in sin or the fall since there wasn't a real Adam and Eve;
5. believe that Jesus died for our sins because there wasn't any sin in the first place.
Are death and disease bad? I must say, I don't like disease, but it is simply the attempts of others of God's creation just trying to make a living. And, of course, those of us who do not live through it are simply following the laws of natural selection in the humans-vs-microbes arms race. Nonetheless, I must say that the idea of a loving God creating strife and bloodshed does sound a bit contradictory.

Honesty? Sure. Looking at it literally, I can't make much sense out of vast tracts of the bible, so I conclude that it is metaphorical and allegorical. This is not dishonesty, any more than it is dishonesty for me to say "the lord is my shepherd" when I really haven't hired him to tend my sheep. I'm speaking metaphorically, not literally. There is no problem with the text of the bible being quite diffrerent from the scientific account of the world. The bible is metaphorical. And would we expect him to tell us (or the analogs of us, 2000 years ago) about genetics and molecular biology, when we didn't have a clue about any of that stuff? He'd use metaphors that were familiar to people of the time. Plenty honest.

The sanctity of human life above all others? Sure. That's what evolution gets you. I fight for my life. I fight for the life of my family. I fight for the life of my tribe, my country, my species. Evolution selects for behaviors, as well as physical characteristics. Naturally, I'll hold human life above others, since I have to eat others to live. BUT, I won't conclude that the other life forms were put here specifically for me to use, and therefore be profligate with my killing of them. I know that my survival depends on their survival, and so I treat them with respect.

The sin and the fall? You've got me there. But I wiggle out of it with my statement above, that the bible is metaphorical. The sin and the fall are a parable, telling me to watch what I do, listen to my elders, and follow the rules. There are plenty of precedents to indicate that these are good behaviors.

Sin, on the other hand, I would define independently. Sin is something that is bad--bad for me, bad for my family, bad for my tribe, bad for my country, bad for my species. It is something that is bad for the ecological and environmental balance upon which all of our lives depend. But it's silly to call sex "sin." I'd say that it's a bigger sin for Congress to make a big fuss about what a president does with an intern than it is for the president and the intern to decide what to do together. Why? Because Congress is shirking its duty to help the people who elected them to office, and thereby causing harm to the entire country. The president and intern caused emotional harm to the president's wife, and that's bad and worthy of the term "sin," but it doesn't seem that biblical teaching prevents people from doing much the same, or worse.

I'd say it's a bigger sin than either of those to eliminate pollution controls on power plants, mining operations, and anything else available, just so that rich companies can make money over the short term. Why? Because over the long term the public will suffer. Degrading the environment by spewing out pollution--which has been proven to cause respiratory diseases, immunological problems, cancer, and a general host of ills--is a lot like soiling your own nest, except that it's everyone else's nest too. That's a Big Sin, which seems to me also to come under the headings of immoral and unpatriotic.

Perhaps a political digression is out of place here, but it makes a point. "Sin" causes harm to other people. It can do so directly, if it's something like personal violence, or it can do so indirectly, through environmental degradation.

So, if I accept evolution, I still recognize that there are many sins in the world. I just rank-order them according to the degree of damage that they do, rather than considering how embarrassed they make me feel. I also recognize that women deserve as much--probably more--respect than men, even though the parable presents Eve as the sneaky one. There's too much suppression of women's rights in too many religions. Accepting evolution shifts the focus, and can lead to real equality.

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ENIGMA
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Post #16

Post by ENIGMA »

Jose wrote:Well, Enigma, that was pretty clear. It also seems to have stopped the thread in its tracks. I think I've done that to some threads, too.
The eerie bit is that was my first post to the forums....

:)

Sort of a dubious honor, I think...
Gilt and Vetinari shared a look. It said: While I loathe you and all of your personal philosophy to a depth unplummable by any line, I will credit you at least with not being Crispin Horsefry [The big loud idiot in the room].

-Going Postal, Discworld

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Jose
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Post #17

Post by Jose »

A dubious honor, indeed. But, you know, it's hard to continue an argument when presented with irrefutable data that shows the argument to be spurious. That goes both ways, in this case. Hitler used several rationalizations for what he did. The important point, which you made so clearly, is that it's never a good idea to take isolated statements out of context, and present them as if they are the entire story.

I look forward to your next posts.

--JB

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Post #18

Post by Dilettante »

adherent said
Being a Christian does not concur with being an evolutionist. Christians believe in creationism
Contrary to what Adherent goes on to say, that's far from undisputable. Even the Catholic leader, John Paul II, sees no problem with evolution as long as we throw in the theory that God infused the soul at some unspecified point. Now, we may argue that this is unscientific, but it does prove that Christians can be evolutionists. Or is anyone going to say that Catholics are not Christians? If they aren't, who is?

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Re: Consequences of believing in Evolution

Post #19

Post by gluadys »

clue wrote: So here we go. If you are a Christian and you also believe in Evolution, how do you harmonize Evolution with your idea of:
1. a good God;
2. an honest God;
3. the sanctity of human life above other life forms;
3. the doctrine of sin and the fall;
4. the redemption we find through a Savior.

For I submit that you cannot
1. believe in a good God if he created death, disease, and bloodshed from the beginning;
2. believe in an honest God since he didn't really tell us in a forthright manner what exactly he did;
3. believe that a human life is any more valuable than a chrysanthemum's life;
4. believe in sin or the fall since there wasn't a real Adam and Eve;
5. believe that Jesus died for our sins because there wasn't any sin in the first place.

1. According to the bible God drowned every man, woman and child and all terrestrial animals except the few in the Ark because he "regretted" making humanity. He commanded the Israelites to kill every man, woman and child down to infants only a day old in several wars. He commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. He sent bears to slaughter a group of children who had been tactless enough to refer to one of his prophets as "Baldy". He murdered a man who was trying to prevent the Ark of the Covenant from falling off the wagon it was in.

If I can believe this God is good, I don't see any problem with believing that a world of "death, disease and bloodshed" was created by the same good God.

2. But God did tell us forthrightly what he did. It's all written out in creation: in the geologic column, in the light of distant stars, in the DNA sequencing of our genomes. If I believe God is the Creator and that God is honest, I have no choice but to believe in an ancient earth and in evolution. Because otherwise I must believe either that:

--God has not created a real world, but an illusory one that doesn't tell the truth about its own history, or
--God has set a barrier between our senses and the world such that our senses ALWAYS lie to us; ditto with our power of reason. If this is true, God gave us these gifts, not for the purpose of knowing his creation but for the purpose of deceiving us.

It is because I believe God is honest that I believe the evidence which says evolution is true.

3. In fact, I rather like the idea that all life is sacred, not just human life. I don't know of any biblical passage which says human life is more sacred than other life.

4. Sin is an observable, empirical fact. I don't need to believe in the literalness of any particular story about its origin to know that sin is real and needs to be dealt with.

5. Since sin is an observable, empirical fact, of course, we need forgiveness and redemption from sin, and reconciliation with those we have sinned against. That includes God as one we have sinned against. As a Christian I believe redemption, forgiveness and reconciliation were made available to us through the blood of Christ.

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Re: Consequences of believing in Evolution

Post #20

Post by harvey1 »

clue wrote:1. believe in a good God if he created death, disease, and bloodshed from the beginning;
The scriptures are clear that death, disease, and bloodshed were to occur prior to the beginning of creation:

"He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the times" (I Peter 1:20)
clue wrote:2. believe in an honest God since he didn't really tell us in a forthright manner what exactly he did;
He did, but you just weren't listening.

"God said, "Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it, according to their kinds." (I) And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it, according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good." (Gen. 1:11)
clue wrote:3. believe that a human life is any more valuable than a chrysanthemum's life;
What is your point here?
clue wrote:4. believe in sin or the fall since there wasn't a real Adam and Eve;
Hey, why not? The Fall is why there is natural selection in the world.
clue wrote:5. believe that Jesus died for our sins because there wasn't any sin in the first place.
Now, you're just being silly. The Lamb of God was slain before creation, as Peter and the book of Revelation show. That means he was slain by the sin that occurred prior to the creation.

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