Serious respectful question for everyone?

Question

Why do people ask the question on yahoo answers,

"If man came from monkeys why are there still monkeys"

and

"If man came from apes why are there still apes"

Is this just Christian propoganda, that the leaders of Christian Churches get Theology and Divinity Degrees and don't get Biology degrees from accredited universities? And they just spread bogus information?

Do the people who ask these questions ever read the explanations about geographic isolation?

Answer 1

If man came from monkeys, then where do women come from?

Answer 2

I haven't seen this question on Y! ? 's yet, but then I don't live on the computer all day either. I actually saw this first on a bulletin board at college (yah, ok, back in the stone age, i know...). It was put up more as a joke.

I don't think it is actually "propoganda" per se, and I've certainly never seen it used by a "serious" Christian leader. It usually comes from "laymen" with little background in either biology or Christian teaching. Again, it is usually just an attempt at creationist humor.

I understand geographic isolation rather well; I was a biology major in college (and yes, it was a Christian Liberal Arts College, a really good institution too). The very best examples shown were the biological niches created by volcanic isolationism in the Polynesian/Hawaiian chain, and the flora/fauna that became "stuck" there....and developed differently from their "parent" species. Really cool. I'm sort of hoping to go there someday to, um, STUDY all that flora and fauna.....(right, I'll be studying the BEACH).

Another good example of geographic isolation is the variations in the starling popluations of the UK and the USA. Our starlings originally came from the UK as pets, and were released into the wild a couple hundred years ago. They now have different characteristics: longer beaks, different colorations, etc.

When applied to humans, the "geographic isolation" equation could easily answer "where did the different races come from" question. I'm not so certain, however, that it would explain the differences in genome between humans and, say, gorillas, if both evolved (supposedly) from a common ancestor.

The differences in starlings just show a difference in ratio of genetically similiar populations, not a change in gene resulting in a different species. Likewise with the bio-diversity in the Polynesian valley niches. No "new" plants or animals are being developed that can't be bred back with their parent species, or with a "sibling" species. No new species are being developed, just different "Types" or "Breeds". Much less are we finding a different Family or Genus!

If geographic isolation ever results in a different Family, Genus, or Species, please contact us online. Thanks.

Answer 3

The same reason that people who don't understand the Bible ask questions about supposed inconsistencies in the Bible.

Or the question, "Could God make a rock so large that even He couldn't lift it?"

Questions such as these are derived from ignorance and simply show that there is very little true thought or meaning behind them. They are not questions intended to inspire intelligent debate, but merely to fuel discontent.

I do however find it interesting that your question, which is well thought out and written, fuels the same kind of low brow hatred.

Look at the comments "Christians lie", "Christians have no desire to learn", "Christians can't think". It amazes me that the people who claim to be so enlightened and tolerant are truly neither.

God, through His Son Jesus Christ, taught in Love.... He is my example.

Just my opinion.

For what it's worth, I have three advanced degrees from accredited universities including a MS in biology. I do not have a theology degree, nor am I a Pastor of any kind. Simply a well educated Christian who made my decision to follow Christ after grad school.


Added:

Bula'ia Aratyme; I could easily list scientists and educators who have been discredited for the same. A single person's indiscretions does not discredit an entire group. If that were true Bill Clinton's antics have toppled the very foundation of the democratic party in America.

Answer 4

well if there was any validity to evolution it it would not have been proved wrong by many.. one such is Gregor Mendel, there are more however I get the feeling you don't want to hear that.

Mendel and Darwin

Mendel, so the argument goes, had set out to refute Darwin’s postulations and, as an exponent of a theological world view, to demonstrate that change can also occur as the result of cross-breeding.

Nineteenth-century theologians regarded Darwin’s "Origin of the Species" as a frontal assault on the dogma of God’s creation of mankind. It was not until 1951 that Pope Pius XII paved the way for an open discussion of evolution within the church. The truly innovative and original idea in Darwin’s work was the concept of population, from which the theory of natural selection proceeded. Heredity in Mendel’s terms, however, far from producing evolutionary change, results in perfectly predictable segregation ratios.

Answer 5

True story:

Once when I'd had a letter to the editor about creationism printed in the local paper, I got a phone call that evening from a creationist. She said "If man came from monkeys, then how come I've been going to the zoo for 30 years and I've never seen a monkey turn into a person? Betcha can't answer that, can ya?".

She caught me in the iron grip of logic, yup.

Answer 6

At least the strict Creationist is more consistent than the person who tries to reconcile the Bible and Evolution. In the second chapter of Genesis man is created before the animals, so Evolution is out. Of course, this contradicts the first chapter of Genesis, so something is amiss anyway. If they had well developed scientific reasoning skills, they wouldn't hold to the Bible in the first place.

Answer 7

I'm sorry, when people ask those kind of questions, I have to wonder about their intelligence. It's such a pat reply, one that had to be taught somewhere, and most likely in Sunday School. These people have to have brains and have to have been educated, yet they still cannot fathom science. They are in denial. To accept how things work in this world, to them is blasphemy and sacrilege. They are driven by fear. If they believe in science, they must disbelieve their religion and then they will surely burn like cordwood on the refuse piles of Gehennah.

Answer 8

Those are silly questions since we don't came from apes...according to that theory you claim to be true, we come from a lower form of life, something similar to a worm: "picaia", am i wrong? no i'm not...i know about evolution story and it just doesn't work for me, i believe evolution happens...but not in a scale it could bring up normal human beings... that chart of apes becaming humans we see in some schools is just as hillarious as those questions people ask, maybe that's why they do those questions.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

People are of only a few different minds.They show from which group they are from by posting the same stupid question that if they paid any attention what so ever they would see had been asked and answered a million times.

Answer 11

How is your question any less propoganda than theirs? Answer the question honestly for them and move on. Just like you know very little about what they believe, they know very little about the things you hold faith in.

Monkeys and apes rarely come up in sermons from serious churches. We don't sit in church and discuss ways to stump non-believers. We've got lives to lead. Church is for inspiration, not debate pointers.