Is the concept of Evolution and God have to be two mutually exclusive concepts?

Question

What I really can’t understand is why so many fundamentalist are set on the idea that God had to create creation with the snap of is fingers and *poof* it was all there fully formed. Even the bible states a day is like a thousand years and there were many metaphors scattered about enough to cause an intelligent person to pause (i.e. the four corners of the earth) and give consideration before jumping to the literal conclusion in any given passage.

We were not born in a poof of smoke, we evolved from a single egg and sperm that through the various stages grew into the adults that we are now. Does it not make sense that even creation also is taking time to evolve? God is not like Genie from Bewitched who simply wiggles her nose and ~ boink ~ it appears. Be reasonable and do not evade the evidence that is right before your very eyes. I acknowledge there is a God, now be big enough to acknowledge the subtleties of the creator you so revere.

orchidmg, the Ape metaphorically are cousins to Human Beings, not our grandparents.

Hand_of_Just..., I am not an atheist and I believe in evolution. Please try not to make hasty generalizations as it only impedes the truth finding process.

Answer 1

The clash between evolution and Christian theology isn't in the timeline, nor even in the "man evolved from apelike ancestors" theory (although that causes a lot of hassles), but in the base premise that *the world isn't finished.*

When Darwin's work came out, he basically declared that the world was not stable--that creatures and even mankind were still changing, and if there was a god, he wasn't done "creating" the world.

Doctrine said the world was created in 6 days, then a day of rest, and then it's DONE. Even if those 6 days took 6 billion years and involved evolution, the process was supposed to be finished when Adam took his first breath... the blasphemy wasn't in the claim of evolution, but in the claim that *it's still happening.*

There's no clash between theism and evolution; billions of non-Christians have no problems with those concepts. It's only Christians, and some particular Christian sects, that cannot tolerate the idea that creation isn't a fixed and unchanging thing.

Answer 2

Evolution and God are not mutually exclusive. Those who say otherwise commit the fallacy of the false dilemma, when there really is a lot of middle ground in the debate. The debate is over how much creation one allows and how much evolution does one allow.

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/fallacies/false_dilemma.htm

Evolution does two things. It explains a natural process in nature and it explains the origin of life based on the former. The natural process I am speaking of is natural selection which results in speciation. This process has been observed and shown to be true based on empirically evidence. I personally don't have a problem with this.

The second part, however, I do have a problem with. The origin of life as explained by evolution says that life evolved from a single common ancestor, also known as abiogenesis. First, this hypothesis is proved by abstraction based on seemingly logical conclusions from natural selection, not empirical proof that affirms natural selection. If one can show that life evolved from a single cell organism then I will accept it as undisputed truth, but until then I will have to make conclusions some other way. I can't. it does not happen because proof does not exists. This is an argument from ignorance, which is a common fallacy.

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/fallacies/from_ignorance.htm

Sense we are left to prove things inductively, we have to come up with the most probable explanations then. The problem with evolution's explanation for the origin of life is that it is statistically unfeasible. There are certain structures in cells that cannot be simplified any further than they already are. It is highly improbable that such structures just appear in nature without some sort of intervening designer to design them. This doesn't guarantee that the structures were designed, but it is much more likely that such structures were designed rather than just appearing randomly. Based on Bayes' theorem, I reject abiogenesis and accept a designer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specified_complexity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem

This doesn't mean that the designer is the Christian God. It just means that there is a designer. But based on my other persuasions, I infer it is the Christian God. The designer could be an alien species, the Force of Star Wars, or something else.

Answer 3

To "Q & A MAN": Your argument isn't very valid. When a woman has conceived a child, the baby, of course, isn't immediately fully grown. It starts off as a fetus without all of the bodily systems that you would see in a human. Also, even when the child is born, it continues to grow. The child even ends up with more bones than it once had; certain functions of an infant's brain get weaker as they get older too because they end up being obsolete. As we grow, our cells continuously multiply causing us to get greater in size, so the theory that we all started from a single celled organism isn't too far fetched. Not to mention, a lot of microorganisms that cause illness evolve as our medicine gets more advanced. It's all about the organism adapting so that it can be ahead of the game and insure the continuation of the species. EDIT: Another thing that I forgot to mention is that our "design" isn't even flawless. We're susceptible to mutations and illnesses. Also some parts of the body aren't really necessary; there are some things that our bodies can't naturally recover from as well. Now to the question: The only part of the 'God concept' that seems reasonable is the "let there be light" thing. Maybe this was possibly the big bang. Maybe this universe was created accidentally by some intelligent beings or some natural occurring phenomenon. Perhaps it'll happen again. The idea of an omnipotent being has simply evolved with mankind over time to explain what couldn't be explained. Even now when we can't explain something we associate it with things that we are already familiar with.

Answer 4

As far as a human evolution- that is called micro-evolution. It is like a small change or something that occurs on small scale. Macro-evolution is where things supposedly evolve on a much larger scale- such as human from amoeba. There has never been even one shred of evidence to prove macro-evolution, and that is the evolution that the Bible speaks against. "the four corners of the earth" is not fallacy. that is mearly stating a lack of proximity. There is far more evidence to back Creationism than Evolutionism. Thousands of top scientists have begun to believe in Creationism rather than the Darwinistic whims of the past. Now nobody ever said that the earth was fully formed. In fact the Bible says that it wasn't. It says that the water was not on the ground for many many generations. All of the water was trapped in a second atmosphere. When the flood came, that second atmosphere fell for 40 days. Of course that would drastically change things. Not to mention the explanations that that can offer for dinosaurs, large reptiles, and even for the poison nature of the venom of the snake. It was all on God's time, but God's time is more clearly laid out than most people take time to realize.

Answer 5

Believe it or not, there are Scientists that believe in the bible. There are several factors that speak for the bible not only against it. Some of these 'Apes' showed signs of religion far before Christ. in some instances, they even buried their dead. Now if God 'poofed' the world into existance, why does the bible say that he created it in thousands of years, (just about the same amount of time evolution would take) then whats the whole bit about adam and eve? the bible is very symbolic. Humans begin with a man and a woman. So kinda look at adam and eve as your mom and dad... then it starts to make sense. : )

Answer 6

I didnt realize you were around at the time of creation and witnessed these things!!!! WOW

Heres the problem with evolution.....

It is being supported by atheists\naturalists that are slowly trying to presuade the public there is no god through this fantastic process called evolution. Evolution is never taught as a creation theory, but a naturalistic theory whereby we evolved from a single celled organism. Trying to mix atheistic philosophy and Christianity is like trying to mix oil and water.

As it is, there is very little evidence for evolution that we have to "evade." There is tremendous evidence for micro-evolution (variatian within a species) but no smoking guns that prove without a doubt to any enightened educated reasonable mind that we magically grew from a germ to a complex human over time.

If youre big enough to ackowledge God, then start following him and stop trying to defend atheists! Let them defend their own rubbish!

Answer 7

I think that God created the start of the universe and He created things on earth to evolve. Evolve simply means to change. We know that plants, animals, land masses, people change with time. People 3000 yrs ago were only about 5 feet tall. Goliath was a giant back then but he was only about 7 feet tall or more. We have basketball players that are that tall now. Evidence proves that all things change. Animals and plants either had to change in order to have their species continue to survive or they died out. But I have a hard time accepting the fact that apes changed into humans. If apes evolved into humans then apes would no longer exist. The original species never continues to exist throughout the process of evolution. Sharks existed millions of years of ago and they still do. They didn't evolve, they just became smaller and different types of breed come to be. We kind of know when apes started to appear and they still exist. Thus some type of animal evolved into apes but apes did ot evolve into humans.

Answer 8

I can see where you're coming from. I have always thought the two could be related and try to reconcile the two in my own mind. How long is god's minute? Separating the two is the stuff disorders are made of. Such conflict of such important human questions. Good question.

Answer 9

i agree and couldn't have said it better (trust me i have tried)
i don't believe in god, but i have studied different religions as to have a knowledge of man. i have always seen the arguments against evolution as foolish.
the best offering of a reason as to hoe they cannot get along is that in the bible man came before fish and such, this can be given a simple solve. god created men and then created fish. he then put fish on the earth and then man. i agree with the fact that evolution does not contradict a god.

Answer 10

There is no doubt that God possible created us over millions of years. Every once and a while improving and tweaking us along the way. And I'm not sure that we may get more than one chance here. Every invention of man usually get improvements over the years before it's perfected.