If evidence for evolution became undeniable, would it change religion? Why the arugment?

Question

Galileo was nearly tortured and killed by the church for saying the world was round and not the center of the universe. Today the evidence supporting Galileo’s theory is overwhelming and cannot be denied by any sensible person. When the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, will it really make any difference to any religion? Why should a religious person care if evolution happened the way Darwin described? What does this have to do with what God taught us about doing God’s will?

Becki, would you kill Galileo? Is the world still flat? Is the world the center of the universe?

kcracer, he did make the world scientifically and if you look at it scientifically you can see how he did it.

Answer 1

Evolution seems to be undeniable. And it won't change religion, everybody needs something to believe in.

Answer 2

Well, it's like what is happening with The Da Vinci Code. There is supposedly new evidence that says that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had a child with her. This is supposed to be contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls, hidden documents that were not allowed into the composing of the Bible by Emperor Constantine. And this is going to supposedly affect the church's way of thinking. But I don't think it should matter how evolution happened, and no, it shouldn't affect what God taught us about doing His will. I think everyone should be entitled to believe what they want about evolution. As for making a difference in religion, some may fight to the death to condemn Darwin for his theory, but what they won't realize is that it really doesn't have anything to do with what God teaches about His will at all. I mean like in The Da Vinci Code; what would the big deal be if Jesus was married? Again, nothing to do with God's will. With evidence of this mounting, people are trying to fight it, forgetting the important fact that you mentioned----God's will. Take care.

Answer 3

My big hang up on evolution is that it calls into question the idea of original sin, and that death is a consequence of sin. I don't think that bacteria (or any animal really) can sin, but they still die, so if there were bacteria way before there were humans, that would mean that death isn't a consequence of sin.

If evolution became completely irrefutable, then I guess I would just trust God on the fact that everyone is still sinful and that death is still a consequence of sin. But I don't think evolution will become irrefutable. We know Galileo is right because we can look into space with telescopes and because we've managed to travel into space. But we can never actually observe evolution in the past.

walterncool: "Genetics and the genome prove it, if you didn't like the fossil record." I'm not sure what you're referring to. Do you have a source for this? Can you explain it more?

Answer 4

They have no answer to this. See the answers from Frizby and Matthew who refuse to address the point. There is an apologetics site that points out that there are so many ERVs that it might not be all that surprising if one ERV is in the same place in both genomes, and also denies that retroviruses insert exactly at random. There may be something in that if it was only one ERV. But of course there are several. Even if the apologists were correct about one or two of these ERVs, the probabilities that there was no common ancestor increases from 1 in 10^ 80 to maybe 1 in 10^71 or 1 in 10^62 or something like that. In other words, it does not matter. In all cases the probability is as close to zero as anyone could wish for. The other side of that argument is that they are inherently admitting that the genomes of chimps and humans are nearly identical in any case.

Answer 5

I think there is an angle to this that most people, especially theologians, refuse to consider, and that is this: That evolution is part of God's plan and was created and made a part of Creation to enable the various species to adapt on their own over thousands or millions of years to random changes in their environment, without necessitating god's continual interference all along the line.

The joke then is on both the Creationists and the Evolutionists. Can it be that Creation AND Evolution are part of the Divine plan? What a kick in the butt that would be for all the religious and anti-religious fanatics. They are BOTH wrong and right at the same time.

Answer 6

I would say the evidence is already pretty indisputable. It just means that people need to adjust to the idea of "intelligent creation." God didn't create the world, as it exists today, in one fell swoop. He got it started, with a plan, and it continues to evolve from there. That doesn't mean He's not the creator. It just means he created the world in a different way. Instead of taking every word of the Bible literally, people need to allow for the fact that there are "parables" in it.

Answer 7

"Undeniable" means that no person would be able to reject it, so you are saying "What if evolution became unversally accepted as 'the truth.'" This, of course, would have an impact on the religious beliefs of many, however, many presumptous people that have little understanding of evolution or science, live with the delusion that current evolutionary theory presumes perfect knowledge of the phenomenon. Such an assumption is misinformed, hence, no real scientist wants to debate, for example, some idiot that wants to frame evolution as an absolute or, worse yet, mistakenly thinks that evolutionary theory means saying that everything that exists today is a matter of complete random chance. This is an error in logic and perhaps an inability to grasp the concept of consequences. Only the origin of life itself would be "pure chance" in current evolutionary theory and is certainly not known or very well understood. What has happened since that point - the point where somehow chemicals formed and replicated their first tiny ribonucleic acid (RNA) chain sequence - is not so badly understood. Hypothetically, assuming evolution as fact, what exists in the world today was not a gauranteed possibility, nor was it, however, developed as a result of completely random chance. The competiting factors of mutation and natural selection would have sorted things to this point.

The terrifying conclusion, however, is that we are not only not the center of the universe, but that our continued survival is not gauranteed. All religions place humanity in one way or another in an immortal format - even if all life is expected to be wiped out on the planet by Ragnarok, there is an expectation of heavenly continued existence. The concept of natural selection, however, suggests the intimidating idea that human survival and existence is not gauranteed and, worse yet, might only have a certain shelf-life. This scares many people away. Science is not emotionally supportive, but austere.

So one part of the answer is that some people will be terrified by such a cold possibility as the extinction of humanity as a natural possibility.

Another issue is that creation stories and interpretations would have to be revised since, as you said, everyone would be accepting evolution as a fact. This would change some major stories, such as "the fall of mankind" with the Garden of Eden story. Would there be an abosolute state of sin? This issue would be most threatening to the concept that humans are trapped in a perpetual, hereditary sin states... Or would it? Perhaps the revised interpretations would make room for this concept! Otherwise, with the idea of Original Sin invalidated, the sacrifice of Jesus would likewise have to change in meaning. If you had no permanent, hereditary sin to forgive, what did Jesus die for? I believe many religions have already sorted out this problem, so it might not be an issue. Some have argued foolishly that "either Jesus was God or he was insane AND all of his teachings were meaningless." Perhaps, but perhaps not. Most crazy people are not actually 100% insane. You also have to look at the standard of credibility in his culture and what was happening historically in the time leading up to his day. Actually, even if there was no real deity, what Jesus had to say as a man made a great deal of sense in his context! Perhaps a whole new field of study might form as to WHY it made so much sensed despite Jesus not being devine? In fact, it seems to me that such work would already be underway.

So what is left? A radical fringe that dangles on the idea that there is no metaphor in the Bible or even that there are no contradictions in the English translations that they almost inevitably read. This group would be radically changed because, as you said, they would have reached the point of accepting evolution as fact. Unable to grasp subtlety, this same absolutist group would probably then reject EVERYTHING in the Bible as useless mythology - a position just as sad as their previous one.
However, here is an evolutionary hypothesis to validate the persistence of the Bible itself: despite numerous opportunities for natural selection to wipe this piece of literature off the planet, it has survived. That said, SOMETHING in the Bible is conducive to survival as a written work and as opposed to any other piece of written work that has in the past been thrown out. Even in a completely atheist society, the Bible would still have a place for that reason.

Of course, as many have said, evolution does not eliminate the possibility of some sort of deity. How did that first strand of RNA form? Weren't the odds ridiculously slim? Since you have not presupposed the elimination of the possibility of an actual deity nor stated that the origin of life would be known, then there would be plenty of room for either there being a deity or simply a mystery that might be interpreted as deity.

There *might* be one enormous benefit: unlike "manifest destiny," humanity could come to the conclusion that following a cultural self-fulling prophecy like those expressed in Revelations is suicidal and stupid. That would be a very nice revision indeed!

Answer 8

As I already believe in Evolution, and know it's a proven fact, nothing would change for me.
I don't think those bible punching right wing types would agree.
As you know, we are here, and believing in or not believing in evolution, makes no difference.
One can always try to twist the truth, to suit ones needs. The Catholic Church has accepted the scientific facts over the years, and they are still going on strong.

Answer 9

Bigots, religious zealots and fanatics will exist despite the strong evidence that the world is round and not the center of the universe.

Answer 10

I'd say that the evidence for evolution HAS attained the same weight as that for the roundness of the earth. Unquestionably. Genetics and the genome prove it, if you didn't like the fossil record.

Answer 11

Here is a question for you to ponder.

What IF God made the universe scientifically?

After all there is no record of Dinosaurs in the Bible but we have bones to prove they existed