[_ Old Earth _] The problem with accepting Christianity and Evolution

[tomstell]

I apologise if this point has been made before.

Here are some problems that I have with those that still hold onto Christian beliefs but accept evolution.


Many have suggested that evolution could be the process by which God works, however:

1) The point about evolution, is that God becomes obsolete, before Darwin God was neccessary to explain life, however now God is not required, God has become merely an accessory.

2) Why would God need to work by evolution; as many have put it why would a supernatural being need to work through a natural process

3) Christians believe in a loving, forgiving, compassioniate God, but evolution by its very nature is a very competetive and brutal process that promotes murder and contempt towards other creatures.

More problems with God, heaven, and our soul (which according to Christians is the part of us that ascends to heaven)

4) When, on the evolutionary line, does our soul develop? Or do all living creatures have souls? Do snakes have souls? Do flies have souls? Do fungi have souls? Does the AIDs virus have a soul? Does the common cold have a soul? It seems very difficult to draw definite lines.

5) When, on the evolutionary line did God start letting creatures into heaven? Again a similiar problem arises, are their AIDs viruses and typhoid bacteria in heaven too?

Or, if only humans are allowed souls and into heaven, then what constitutes a human, is it homo sapiens sapiens? Or do homo habilis, homo erectus, homo ergaster, etc. also constitute fully human.
Do homo erectus have souls? Are homo habilis allowed into heaven?

The point I'm trying to make is that evolution is just a continual process, it is difficult to draw distinct lines anywhere along the line



Thankyou for your time, I would really appreciate it if people could truly consider and challenge the points made. And contrary to how it may appear I am not an athiest.

Bless you[/i]

 

[jwu]

1) The point about evolution, is that God becomes obsolete, before Darwin God was neccessary to explain life, however now God is not required, God has become merely an accessory.

I don't think so. The theory of evolution doesn't make God any more obsolete than the theory of gravity.
People don't believe anymore that God is holding the planets on their orbit and people on the ground, now it's gravity.

Being responsible for the biodiversity on earth is not all there is about God, He is necessary for many other things.

2) Why would God need to work by evolution; as many have put it why would a supernatural being need to work through a natural process

Why would He not? In our days He does work that way, why would that have been different in the past? Why would a method that is good enough for God now not be good enough in the past? Furthermore, even in a YEC scenario a hugely accellerated evolution is required to explain the number of species that we can see when only a very limited number of kinds survived.

There is even biblical support for evolution:

Wisdom 19:18-19

For the elements, in variable harmony among themselves, like strings of the harp, produce new melody, while the flow of music steadily persists. And this can be perceived exactly from a review of what took place.

For land creatures were changed into water creatures, and those that swam went over on to the land.

So species can change significantly - even according to the Bible

3) Christians believe in a loving, forgiving, compassioniate God, but evolution by its very nature is a very competetive and brutal process that promotes murder and contempt towards other creatures.

Nonetheless exactly that is what we see around us today. If God wasn't fine with that in a way that would prevent Him from using these mechanisms in the past, when why seems He to be fine with them happening today? Why doesn't God intervene?

4) When, on the evolutionary line, does our soul develop? Or do all living creatures have souls? Do snakes have souls? Do flies have souls? Do fungi have souls? Does the AIDs virus have a soul? Does the common cold have a soul? It seems very difficult to draw definite lines.

Evolution makes no statement at all about that. If you want to believe that at some point humans became a soul from God, or that this was a continous process or whatever is completely up to you.

5) When, on the evolutionary line did God start letting creatures into heaven?

Again, evolution makes no statement whatsoever about that. It's completely up to you. I suppose most people consider the answer of this question to be analogous with the above one about souls.

Again a similiar problem arises, are their AIDs viruses and typhoid bacteria in heaven too?

The answer to this has absolutely nothing to do with evolution.
AIDS exists today. It didn't exist in the past, regardless of the accuracy of a literal Genesis. The answer to this question is the same for both YECs and TEs, whatever it may be.

 

[Lyric's Dad]

People don't believe anymore that God is holding the planets on their orbit and people on the ground, now it's gravity.

Not true. If God were to take His hand off the universe it would not stand together on it's own. God created gravity and it is Him that keeps it together.

 

[jwu]

You're missing my point. When you ask someone today who/what is keeping the planets on their orbits, then the answer will be "gravity". It's no longer directly associated with God.
Of course, a theist can say that God is behind gravity, which just happens to look natural - but then one can also say the same about evolution.

 

[tomstell]

In response to jwu

In response to jwu

To points 1) and 2) you seem to have provided a plausible answer, even though I feel that they do not fully answer the problem. To problem 3) you seem to have provided no answer at all. However for points 4) and 5) I feel that maybe you have not fully understood the point I was making, perhaps I can make it more clear:



4) Being a Christian one must accept the belief that humans have a soul. According to Christian tradition, the soul is a metaphysical connection with God and life after death. It is the soul that will join God in heaven after death. However if you also accept evolution there seems to be a problem. If you accept that only humans have souls then at what point on the evolution line did we become fully human, when were we suddenly blessed with a soul. It seems that at some time in the past an ape/human-type creature (without a soul) would have to give birth to another ape/human with a soul. It seems ridiculous, and if not very problematic. Alternatively one could accept that all God's creatures have a soul. But this would mean accepting that dogs, cats, snakes, flies, mosguitos, amoebas, trees, fungi, amoebas, AIDs viruses, typhoid bacteria, maleria etc. all have souls. Which, to me, sounds ridiculous.


5) Pretty much the same problem arises when we accept life after death along with evolution. Are all creatures allowed in? Again does this mean that we will find typhoid, maleria, AIDs etc. in heaven? (because these are all living creatures, just like us) Or is there a cut off point somewhere along the evolutionary line? i.e. are only humans allowed into heaven? And if so, when does this cut off point occur, are early cavemen allowed in? Are Neanderthol men allowed in? Homo erectus? Again it seems that, at some time in the past, an ape/human, that was not allowed in, would have to give birth to another ape/human that would be allowed in.

I would really appreciate an intelligent reply, thankyou.

 

[reznwerks]

God

People don't believe anymore that God is holding the planets on their orbit and people on the ground, now it's gravity.

Not true. If God were to take His hand off the universe it would not stand together on it's own. God created gravity and it is Him that keeps it together.
That holds true if and only if you could finally prove that a God existed and you knew his intentions.

 

[jwu]

Re: In response to jwu

In response to jwu
To problem 3) you seem to have provided no answer at all.

Why? What don't you like about my answer?
Life is cruel today, and God seems to be fine with it. Based on that i see no reason to assume that it'd have been any different in the past.

4) Being a Christian one must accept the belief that humans have a soul. According to Christian tradition, the soul is a metaphysical connection with God and life after death. It is the soul that will join God in heaven after death. However if you also accept evolution there seems to be a problem. If you accept that only humans have souls then at what point on the evolution line did we become fully human, when were we suddenly blessed with a soul. It seems that at some time in the past an ape/human-type creature (without a soul) would have to give birth to another ape/human with a soul. It seems ridiculous, and if not very problematic. Alternatively one could accept that all God's creatures have a soul. But this would mean accepting that dogs, cats, snakes, flies, mosguitos, amoebas, trees, fungi, amoebas, AIDs viruses, typhoid bacteria, maleria etc. all have souls. Which, to me, sounds ridiculous.

Why would that be ridiculous? Keep in mind, one doesn't develop a soul all by oneself. It's a gift from God. The soul of the first human being wouldn't have popped into existence all by itself, but was granted to him or her by God.
That doesn't seem any more ridiculous than God zapping a fully formed human including a soul into existence - after all, it requires less divine intervention than the latter version.

With that answer i think point 5 becomes obsolete.

 

[tomstell]

In response to jwu

In response to jwu

With refernce to point 3), I was making the point that the nature of the evolution process is of a nature entirely different to that of the Christian God; not that in the past things were different?!

Why would an all-loving God bother with a process that, by its nature, promotes rivalry, killing and contempt?


It would seem that, if anything, evolution suggests a somewhat morally mixed God

With reference to point 4) and 5) we will have to agree to disagree

 

[jwu]

Why, if that all loving God wouldn't use such means, is exactly that what we observe today?


These things happen today, therefore God apparently is fine with it.

 

[tomstell]

Sorry, I do not understand your point.

How have you answered the problem of the clear contradiction between an all-loving God that sets up a process that requires killing and rivalry.

 

[tomstell]

Sorry, I do not understand your point.

You have not answered the problem of the clear contradiction between an all-loving God that sets up a process that requires killing and rivalry.

 

[jwu]

Is an all loving God incompatible with killing and rivalry?

 

[tomstell]

Yes, it is when alternatively God could have created all the creatures at once without the need for evolution

 

[cubedbee]

Yes, it is when alternatively God could have created all the creatures at once without the need for evolution

You're awful presumptious. You could just as well say that human death and suffering are incompatible with a loving God because God could have alternatitely created a universe with no human pain or suffering. While God might have been able to do that, he did not, yet he is still a loving God, and I know that our pain and suffering serve God's good purpose. Likewise, I know that God could have created a universe without evolution, but he did not, and the killing and rivalry we see in evolution are all serving God's good purpose.

 

[tomstell]

cudedbee wrote:

You're awful presumptious

But surely it is more presumptious, to presume that

our pain and suffering serve God's good purpose

 

[jwu]

Yes, it is when alternatively God could have created all the creatures at once without the need for evolution

Yet the world undeniably is cruel, and God seems not to do anything about it.

What does that tell us about God?

Either He is fine with it for whatever reason - then there is no problem with God using these mechanisms from the start. Or God doesn't exist.

Keep in mind that even in the YEC scenario God apparently used evolution - even hyper-evolution - to repopulate the earth after the noachian flood.

 

[Drew]

1) The point about evolution, is that God becomes obsolete, before Darwin God was neccessary to explain life, however now God is not required, God has become merely an accessory.

This point rests on a fundamental confusion between issues of mechanism ("how" things work) and the question of whether a "causal agent" (e.g. God) is ultimately the architect of such mechanisms. The "God of the Gaps" argument - the idea that the absence of some mechanistic explanation of some phenomena means that God is orchestrating that phenomena - should be discarded by believers. Why? For one, because it presumes that God's handiwork will not be subject to mechanistic characterization by human beings. Why should this be so? Why do we assume that once we understand the "how" mechanism, that this pushes God out the picture.

2) Why would God need to work by evolution; as many have put it why would a supernatural being need to work through a natural process

Related to previous question. The degree to which our world is comprehensible to us is astonishing. It should not be taken for granted that we can understand so much (not everything, of course). So to me, the evidence suggests that God is very much in the business of making his handiwork accessible to the human mind. Evolution could easily be just another of these comprehensible mechanisms that God employs.

3) Christians believe in a loving, forgiving, compassioniate God, but evolution by its very nature is a very competetive and brutal process that promotes murder and contempt towards other creatures.

Clearly, the God described in the Bible is at least "involved" in what seems to us to be some very brutal acts - ordering the slaughter of Amelakites (down to the last child). So a "brutal" evolution is certainly not inconsistent with the way God works in the world (if one believes in errancy of the Bible).

More problems with God, heaven, and our soul (which according to Christians is the part of us that ascends to heaven)

4) When, on the evolutionary line, does our soul develop? Or do all living creatures have souls? Do snakes have souls? Do flies have souls? Do fungi have souls? Does the AIDs virus have a soul? Does the common cold have a soul? It seems very difficult to draw definite lines.

This issue is no more problematic for an evolutionist than for a theist. The basic issue is working the notion of a "soul" into our picture of reality. A lot more could be said (but won't be, unless someone is interested)

5) When, on the evolutionary line did God start letting creatures into heaven? Again a similiar problem arises, are their AIDs viruses and typhoid bacteria in heaven too?

This is an interesting question but it does not pose any more of a problem than the myriad of other problems where we are challenged to "draw a line". Life is full of these problems.

 

[manimal2878]

Sorry, I do not understand your point.

How have you answered the problem of the clear contradiction between an all-loving God that sets up a process that requires killing and rivalry.

Didn't god have some killed because of what they did. Didn't god have the israelites go into war?

THis is not a problem created by evolution but a contradiction already seemingly apparent in the bible and nature of god.

Maybe god is not all loving.

 

[cubedbee]

cudedbee wrote:

You're awful presumptious

But surely it is more presumptious, to presume that

[quote:9eb55]our pain and suffering serve God's good purpose

[/quote:9eb55]

What have I presumed?
Do you disagree that God's purpose is good?
Do you disagree that all things serve God's purpose?
Do you disagree that pain and suffering exist?

The first two are supported by Scripture, the last is supported by every person's experience. I haven't presumed a single thing.

 

[tomstell]

I think that relying entirely on scripture is rather problematic, seeing as we know that The Bible was wrong about Creation/Evolution.

Note: I am not saying that Christain Tradition is wrong, just that it seems to be very problematic. The more we discover, it seems, the more holes we find.