Tuesday, 08 July 2008
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It is Impossible to Believe in Christianity and Evolution at the Same Time
from thetheologianscafe
The Bible is clear about a few truths. One of those truths is how the world was created. The Bible says, "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth." (Gen. 1:1). It is impossible to say that you believe in the Bible and then turn around and to deny the clear teachings of the Bible.The Bible then goes on to spell out how the Earth was created:
"And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day,' and the darkness he called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morningthe first day." (Gen. 1:3-5).
The Bible clearly indicates that God created the Earth. But it goes on to show how He created the Earth. He created it in 6 days and then rested on the 7th day. Look at the passage above. Notice how the Bible refers to a day and a night? The passage breaks it down by days.
The Bible goes on to teach about the second day:
"And God said, 'Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.' So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse 'sky.' And there was evening, and there was morningthe second day" (Gen 1:6-8).
Once again the Bible clearly teaches a literal day.
The teaching of creationism is fundamental to understanding the whole Bible. If a person was to sit down and read the first three chapters of Genesis, he/she would walk away with an understanding that God created the Earth and that He created the Earth in six days.
I have never struggled with any evidence that the Earth was older than what the Bible teaches. Why? Imagine with me for a moment that you were with a few doctors standing next to Adam five minutes after he was created. Imagine that we had the doctors examine Adam and tell us how old he was in years. The doctors would probably tell us that Adam was about 20 years old (or however old Adam appeared). But how old was Adam?
At that moment, he was only five minutes old. Why were the doctors wrong? The doctors were smart people. They were intelligent people. They were guessing Adam's age based on their current data. But they were wrong. Why? Because God had just created Adam as a supernatural act. God created Adam in his mature state.
Now do you remember when Jesus made the wine? The wine was declared the best. If you took a group of scientists and had them examine the wine, they would come up with an age. They may guess 5 years old. They may guess 10 years old. But how old was the wine five minutes after Jesus created it? It was five minutes old. Why were the scientists wrong? They were wrong because they were using all the data they ever knew to make a decision. But their data didn't include the possibility of a supernatural act.
But Christians are afraid to say they believe God created the Earth. So they compromise. They will come up with some sort of happy medium that indicates they can believe in creation as taught in the Bible and also believe in evolution. These Christians show they are far more concerned about what people around them think than having a Biblical worldview.
Those Christians are afraid to appear like they are anti-intellectual by disagreeing with the majority of the scientific community. So they compromise the first few chapters of the Bible in order to conform to the conventional wisdom of the day.
The problem with those Christians is they have compromised everything with a compromise of the truth of God's word.
Is it possible to believe God created the Earth and believe in evolution at the same time?
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Comments (527)
I'm sure it's been said, I don't feel like reading through all the comments at the present, but just to clarify:
Creation does NOT in anyway equal evolution. They are two completely different concepts. You are probably more thinking along the lines of the Big Bang Theory. God did it, not two random particles that collided. I agree.
I believe in Creation. I believe in evolution. I do not necessarily believe we evolved from apes, but we everything has definitely changed (evolution, natural selection, adaptation). Skin color is an adaptation to varying degrees of sunlight in one's area. Diseases become resistant to medications/antibiotics. Animals move from one area to another and become separated from maybe half their original group and over time, a long amount of time, they may become something a little different, like they eat something different, or live differently. Polar bears and black bears, for example. Did God create both Polar and Black bears, or did he just create "the bear"? How can you know for sure? ((Sorry if that's kind of mumbled and not very well put together...I am quite tired and should probably be sleeping, but I like this topic. Oh, and also, feel free to correct my examples. I'm sure they're not really all necessarily examples of evolution, but they are examples of parts of evolution - natural selection or survival of the fittest mainly))
Now, on the idea of how old the earh is... I do not believe in a young earth. The Bible mentions days and years and such, but who says a day wasn't more than 24 hours back then? Who says a year wasn't more than 365 days? These could been defined differently. Or, as I was scrolling through the comments, gogreen's message caught my eye. "How much time passed between the verse 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' and the next (really the third, about where light was created on the first day).
But, in the end, do the small minute details really matter? All that REALLY matters is we love God, he loves us. We repent. We have a relationship with Him.
@shedinator@xanga - I can't agree with you when you say that no Young Earth proponents argue for planted dinosaur fossils. Flood/fossil theory is problematic anyway since current dating techniques are accurate enough to essentially disprove that they were all created with a 6000 year windows.
And we're not talking about evolution as a diversifying chihuahua creating mechanism. I'm pretty sure we're talking about species development. Constrain evolution to just a breed creator and you might as well not talk about evolution. Sort of like describing God as a nice old gentlemen with magic powers.
@another_rebel_without_a_cause@xanga - I'm pretty sure this post was a flat out denial of Science, just not a denial of fact. His/Her entire argument hinges on the premise that modern Scientists have completely misinterpreted the facts that they have been presented with in regard to the formation of the earth and origin of life.
I implore you to look at Genesis I and then look at Genesis 2. You will notice that there are actually two creation stories which do not align. For instance, in Genesis 2, he creates man before he creates animals, whereas in Genesis 1, you have a vice versa case.
I think many Christians see many portions of the Bible as symbolic and not literal. I think it's absolutely impossible to interpret the entire Bible literally. For instance, look at the book of Job. It never happened. There's no such thing as the Land of Uz. Even Biblical scholars agree, it was just a fictional story put there to show the power of faith.
What's wrong with believing in a guy (jesus) who has so much evidence surrounding his existence and at the same time doubting the account of the author who wrote Genesis, when the stories in the same book contradict one another?
-David
I like the bible, it is a fascinating read. I do not however find it to be any more true than any theory of science regarding the creation of the universe. We weren't there, the people who wrote the bible weren't there, and the scientists who wrote the theories weren't there.
There is no way, shy of having been there ourselves to prove or disprove any scripture or theory regarding it. So in the brilliant words of so many internet trolls before me, STFU. It is intellectual banter that will not find any conclusion because neither side will concede defeat nor will either side be capable of proving any further that one is more right than the other without having been there at the creation of the universe to know for certain.
@ashleyannaka@xanga - yeah... that has all been said
@esch99@xanga - Actually, if you read the post we're not talking about evolution at all, we're talking about the formation of the Universe AKA the big bang. But in regard to evolution as being just a breed creator, that's essentially what any young-earther believes.
Also, in the realm of dating, it's not quite as accurate as it's touted. Lab-created rocks have been tested and measured to be thousands and millions of years old. Also, any form of current dating technique is based on a difficult assumption. Carbon-14, for example, measures the ratio of Carbon-14 to Carbon-12, and using half lives is able to calculate the age. The difficulty comes in determining how much Carbon-12 was in the specimen BEFORE the C14 began to decay. A Young-earther would tell you that G-d put a whole mess of carbon-12/Uranium-232(Is that the right number?)/whatever else in there at the beginning, and scientists don't know what that amount was. You've got to admit... it's possible.
And which Creationist have you met that says G-d created Dinosaur Fossils and no Dinosaurs? All the leading "experts" on the subject of Creation-Science that I've read or heard or watched believe Dinosaurs lived breathed and walked before the flood (the pre-deluvian era, if you will).
@shedinator@xanga - How do you figure that? What's your definition of Christian? If a person believes in Jesus Christ and his teachings, she/he is a Christian.
I hate all of those "is it possible to be a Christian and ..." questions. The answer is yes. (1st Corinthians 10:23)
That aside, it's not possible to take Genesis 1 & 2 completely
literally. If you do, they contradict each other. In Genesis 1, God
creates beasts first, then Man, but in Genesis 2, God creates Adam
before he creates livestock.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201-2&version=31
most notably Gen. 2:14....a second account of creation begins in Gen. 2:4
Secondly, if God created the world ~6000 years ago as the geneaology
suggests, that would mean God created fossils and other various rock
formations, etc. that scientists base their estimates on. If God did
that, that would mean his is untrustworthy because he deliberately
deceived mankind.
Thirdly, microevolution is undeniable. Want proof of that? Antibiotic resistence: case in point.
I could continue, but I won't. I haven't decided how I feel about
evolution of humans other than it's really not that important, only
that the rest of the world as we know it came about through "natural
processes." Supernatural creation of man? sure why not? I don't view it
as necessary, but neither do I view it as a contradiction.
Here's how I, as a Christian, read the Creation Stories in Genesis: a
metaphor to reveal the nature of God and how we are wired. For example,
God provides the means to ends that he desires, as illustrated by the
fact that he "creates" the habitat before the creatures, and He created
man to be in need of companions (I'm sorry Garfunkle, you are not an
island). Once again, I could continue, but for the sake of bevity, I
digress.
Needless to say, I believe in evolution and I will defend my views when
promted as instructed in 1st Peter (3:15). However, when the day is
done, it's not about who wins the debate, it's about who's faith is
made stronger by what. My faith in God is stronger (in some ways
existent) because I believe in evolution. If your faith is made
stronger by your belief in Creationism, more power to you. We can't
know, this side of heaven, the truth, but if our faith is being made
stronger (i.e. the spirit is being poured out) then how can you say
it's wrong? (Acts 11:15-17)
Please, attack my arguments all you like, but if you attack me I will ignore you.
Much Love
-Lenny
Great post Dan!
I realize as a Christian we should be able to defend creation vs evolution, I am sure if need be I would be able to but I can not help feeling the urgency to help people find their way to God in a more relational way. I think non Christ followers get turned off by intellectual debates, they see Christians as argumentative.
my bad...I just realized there was a second page and I repeated a lot things that were said...sorry.
There are not seriously people who believe that the earth is only 6000 years old are there? Wow. As a child/teen, having grown up a fundie Christian, I decided once there was proof of evolution, dinosaurs, single celled organisms, etc etc that a "day" in God's reality was not a "day" as we know it. How many calendars are there exactly?
I'm seriously in shock that anyone believes that the earth is only 6000 years old.
And... unfortunately your post is making me really question whether I believe that God created the earth at all. If the two are mutually exclusive, then I would have to change my view and say "no."
@Direshark@xanga - actually, they don't contradict as much as one might think. In Genesis 1, Moses (or whoever you think the Author was) uses the word "Barah" 3 separate times: When he describes the Creation of heaven and earth, again when he describes the Creation of animals, and once more with man. Barah means "To create something from nothing." In Genesis two, the word asah is used. Asah means "to make," as in from what was already in existence. So in chapter one, G-d Created animals, whereas in chapter 2, he made them. The difference is there for a reason. Essentially, G-d had already created the dingo, the platypus, the elephant, the horse, and whatever else you can think of, and they were all roming around. However, He wanted Adam to name them, so he made some more of them. It wasn't "here's something brand new," it was "This is one of the things I created, what do you want to call him."
And no, not all biblical scholars agree on the non-existence of the land of Uz. In fact, there is one idea that I like to call the "China theory" that explains it quite well. The Chinese name for China sounds nothing like "China", it is something more along the lines of "Zhongua." However, most Americans are not aware of this, we just all call the place China. It's very possible that the author of Job was calling some other kingdom "Uz" in the same manner that we call Zhongua "China."
On top of that, the Jews have always included Job in the kethubim-or writings, which is also where the psalms, the proverbs, ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs are located. These are books that are considered to be based on truth but may or may not be fact. Genesis, on the other hand, is part of the Torah- the Law. Books in the Torah, from Genesis-Deuteronomy, are not thought to have any myth or legend in them.
No. Evolution is taught as a way for things to become as they are naturally while Creationism is teaching that there was a definite creator.
@soul_survivor@xanga - The word "Christian" originated at Antioch, where Paul (then Saul) and Barnabas were ministering. Paul himself described a Christian as someone who whole-heartedly follows the teachings and commands of Jesus. Jesus taught that he was the way, the truth, and the light, and that NOONE was going to the Father except through Him. Unitarianism, which has at the highest levels merged with Universalism, permits the doctrine that ALL religious paths, Christian or not, lead to G-d/heaven.
@sheepthatsblack@xanga - I've already presented most of the standard arguments against your reasoning, in regards to the genesis 1&2 thing, click here.
@Mac_Libureet@xanga - who are you addressing? The process of evolution is a natural process, yes. However, belief in evolution does not require belief in primordial soup or the idea that we all evolved from single-celled organisms. And belief in Creation does not negate the fact that organisms adapt over time. If there is a Creationist who sincerely believes that, then we need to find him, because he obviously has the cure for AIDS and MERSA, among other things.
There is no proof that evolution exists. It is not a fact. Everything in science is tentative.
Charles Darwin, or whoever, was probably high when he made that up.
"Is it possible to believe God created the Earth and believe in evolution at the same time?"
YES. First, you're not distinguishing between micro and macro evolution. Virtually no one objects to micro evolution, so I'm going to assume you're just talking macro here. Regardless, there's no reason not to believe that God orchestrated evolution (or just set up the Earth so that it would happen naturally regardless), unless you're literally reading the Bible, and ignoring any possibility of metaphor. I think ignoring metaphors would cause an omission of a huge part of the Bible, and many tales within it are often described as metaphorical. A "day" was a "day" for God, and there's no telling how long the sun "rose" or "set" on that day. Again, God doesn't necessarily follow the rules of human understanding, so why would he have to there?
But your post was also somewhat inaccurate. To my knowledge, no scientist attempts to date wine. That's for wine connoisseurs, and I know of no real scientific method to age the wine, except perhaps looking at level of fermentation, but you'd have to be really specialized, and honestly, I don't think anyone cares enough to age wine in that much detail. As for aging a person, that could take many forms. Scientists, certainly, would do more than look at Adam. They might measure his pulse, blood pressure, stress test response, wearing on the bone (if he was already dead and they could look at that), wrinkles or scars, stretch marks or birthmarks, or even genetics. DNA is tipped by these little things called telomeres, which protect the rest of the sequence from being destroyed during replication or other normal activity. With each time the DNA is replicated, the telomeres are a little bit shorter (damaged). Generally, this doesn't cause too much of a problem, but if the DNA has had to replicate too many times (usually in case of repeated trauma to an area), the telomeres are completely gone, and this has very bad consequences for the DNA. This is supposedly one of the causes of cancer, and it's one of the big problems associated with genetic cloning (if we take DNA from an adult animal, the telomeres are possibly already fairly worn down, so during the course of another live, they may fall apart even more quickly). I'm simplifying the issue here, but unless God created Adam specifically with short telomeres, then these scientists could probably date him with just a DNA sample.
@soul_survivor@xanga - God being a Creator and evolution are not mutually exclusive. Some other people already mentioned the difference between original creation and species creation...(Big Bang and then evolution), and God is most certainly the orginal creator, I see no way around that. As for the earth being 6000 years old...some people still believe the earth is flat....
@shedinator@xanga - fair enough, what about for arguments two and three?
I believe in God and I believe in evolution (to an extent). I do NOT believe humans evolved from anything and I believe that the world was, in fact, created by God in a week (that's where my creationism beliefs come in). However, there is substantial evidence of evolution when it comes to nonhuman animals (we are part of the Animal Kingdom afterall), so in nonhuman animals, yes I believe evolution does exist in the form of natural selection.
You can...
God is -Why-
Evolution is -How-
Over the years, I've become more and more convinced of the truth of this based solely on the impossibility of evolutionary gradualism as a historical paradigm for biology. There hasn't been a single observance of novel genetic data being added to the DNA of any species, even thousands of generations of fruit flies whose mutation was artificially accelerated. For the diversification of all species from a single-celled organism, there have to be thousands upon thousands of additions of novel organ structures, and we just haven't seen a single instance of that even within thousands of generations of small organisms.
As for Christianity's incompatibility with evolution, it's morally clear. If simple cells evolved into more complex creatures that ultimately became Adam and Eve or humanity as we know it, then for millions of years, pain and death and predators and sickness and genetic aberrations were all commonplace-- before sin. Therefore, God created the world with these afflictions, and they are His responsibility, not ours, so the Cross becomes meaningless, since man did not bring death into the world. If man did not cause death by sinning, then Jesus did not need to deliver man from death, so the sacrifice of Jesus becomes an act of sadism by the Father.
Genesis 1:1-5 seems to be talking about the universe and not just the earth. Clearly if one believes that God created the earth and everything in it than one would also have to say that God created the universe as well, and everything in it.
It makes no sense to me to separate the creation of the earth from the creation of the universe. The Big Bang is the generally accepted theory for the beginning of the universe, but it has some problems as a theory, the biggest one being that "inflation" is a necessary component, but according to known laws of physics "inflation" is impossible.
God is the Alhpa and the Omega. He created the universe, and everything in it. I don't know how the earth and humans fits in to that cosmology, but:
1. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on earth.
2. God is the God of the whole universe
3. We are certainly not the only sentient beings in the universe
4. A literal 7 day creation is not as important to me as the concept of creation (however it is interesting that the theory of "inflation" in the Big Bang theory takes place in a time frame so small that it can hardly be expressed in a mathematical formula)
5. Jesus is God's revelation to us, and God's way of offering a way for humans to know him.
I had always believed God created the Earth, and the Earth is only...Well, whatever year it is on the Jewish calendar, That's how old it would be. I just never had the insight as to how the big discrepancy in the believed age of the earth could exist. Thanks, Dan!
@muzical_writer735@xanga - Proof of Evolution: see Rapidly Mutating Virus.
@sheepthatsblack@xanga - I agree with argument 3, anyone would be an idiot not to. In regards to argument 3, dating is dependent on knowing the quantity of non-radioactive material prior to the beginning of decay, I've mentioned before about lab-created rocks that have tested at thousands and millions of years old. Re: the fossil record. To complete the theory without having the norse god Loki as a divine creator, it has to be assumed that any fossilized animal was once alive, so the general consensus is that most fossilized things were "pre-deluvian" or alive before the flood. They were buried in the sediment that was churned up by the water, and eventually sedimentated. Although I must say, I don't think my salvation or my love of Christ or even my belief in the Bible depends on ANY of this being true, it's just hte most logical argument for the side you are going against.
@shedinator@xanga - Apologies. I was grouping YE folks with creationists in general. A quick look on wikipedia cleared that one up. The "dinosaurs as fossils" is a combination of what non-experts have said in person and on the media.
I'm actually not all that interested in a YE debate. I've stated my conclusion in my original reply and clarified it in my followup. The side topics are kind of interesting, but not so much.
And despite your carbon dating "hole," it still seems to work well enough. Not like it invalidates the technique .