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Quote by: stevemckay  First a background on me. I was raised as a “Christian” (meaning my folks said they believed in God/Jesus but we NEVER went to church) then I embraced the faith wholeheartedly in my late teens (I became a bible thumper). However I have always believed in the scientific explanation of how the universe was formed and how evolution was the driving force behind mankind’s current form. About 11 years ago I was told by an elder that I could not believe in evolution and God and I was asked to either stop talking about evolution in our Bible studies about Genesis or leave the church. That started a faith crisis that took me down a path to becoming an atheist for about 10 years up to my current agnostic state.
Now my question: Can you really believe in evolution AND the God that is represented in the bible?
I think you can. For example:
Gen 2:7 the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground…
Gen 8:20 Then Noah made an altar to the Lord….
No one, I assume, believes Noah magically created an altar but, rather, had to gather stone, pile them up, etc... He had to build it in stages. The Bible does not specifically mention those steps but we should assume they were there.
So why do many Judeo-Christians assume the creation of man happened in one step and not in stages from basic organic molecules all the way up to a modern human? From what I understand the word used in the original Hebrew for “Day” actually means “an indeterminate period of time” so saying he had to do it in one 24 hour day does not fly. |
No, the bible and evolution are two completely contrasting ideas and here is why.
If humans evolved from monkeys, then that would mean that the first people were very primative, very simple, incapible of developing any sort of language. Basically, they were not Adam and Eve.
Now, you might say that this is all fine and dandy. Living in a largely Democratic city, most of the Christians that I come into contact with beleive that the story of Adam and Eve is symbolic anyway.
But the problem here is that if Adam and Eve didn't exist, than Eve wouldn't have eaten from the tree, which eventualy gives human beings original sin.
Now original sin is one of Christianity's greatest things that it can fall back on. It is basically the lifeline of a fundamentalist.
"Human beings cannot come to prove god's existance because our intellect has been darkened by original sin."
"You need to turn to Jesus Christ because without him you won' be able to overcome original sin."
And if that isn't bad enough, if original sin didn't exist, then the question, "Why exactly is Jesus dying on the cross?" comes up.
So we can see why fundamentalists will always fight tooth and nail to attempt to disprove or discredit Evolution.
So, in short, Christianity and Evolution cannot both be true. That is not to say, however, that the idea of a god setting evolution into motion isn't inherently possible; it just can't be the god of Christianity.