Why don't people realize that creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive?

Question

Seriously! Christians freak out about evolution leaving no room for ntelligent design theories, but let's consider this:
Evolution is not the big bang theory, nor does it make any claims into how life began. The study of evolution is only involved with what happens to life that already exists! Creationists should pick this bone with the chemists of the world instead, because their work is much more likely to deal with "how" life begins.
There's no reason why people can't believe that God created life (if they so choose), and then it evolved. So why the controversy?

Answer 1

The controversy as I see it is that evolutionists hold the position that life came out of non-life in a way that discounts God, that what life there is came about through random chance, and that mankind is not a special creation made in the image of God, but the product of probabiilty. In other words, they hold evolution as a proof that there is no God. If this position were not so (pardon the pun) religiously held, then there would not be a controversy.

Answer 2

I think of it as the 2-God theory.
Some people need a god that's responsible for every single event in their lives. He gives neat, easy explanations that warrant, or invite, no scrutiny, e.g., "That the way I did it." Most importantly, he has a manual where you can look up how everything works and happens. That God's manual was written by primitive desert dwelling scribes makes it all the more "real" for them. This I call the followers of the little god.

Others cannot reconcile the vastness and complexity of the universe without some guiding hand or principle. They generally laugh at the idea that God would violate the science arising out of one of His greatest creations - human intellect. And of course they cannot take the aforementioned scribbling of the camel guys as literal scientific truth. They have no problem with evolution, or with any other branch of science - indeed some of these believers are great contributors to the various theories. These I call the followers of the great god.

I am a non-believer. But I've never had a problem with the believers of the great god - not even on things theological. And they see no controversy at all. Quite the contrary, they see the greatness of their god reflected in those theories and negated by the literalists.

Answer 3

Actually, the Bible agrees with many scientific principles. At Isiah 40;22 it even mentions the earth being like a circle, whereas man thought the land was flat until columbus's time. Many of the mosaic laws given to the israelites were for protection from disease, such as covering their waste and not eating certain animals. and many people assume that the days of creation were 24 hour periods, but that might not be so. in Ezekial 4;6 and Numbers 14;34 , a day is to represent a year and God doesn't use time the way we do with our cycles around the sun and so forth. Also , Noah was commanded to get each kind of animal, male and female to load onto the ark. now look at all the different varieties of dogs and cats there r for instance. however , no animal can reproduce with a different kind, it goes against a genetic code. Darwin used the different varieties of finches to explain evolution, but the fact is that all those different kinds of birds were still finches, they didn't change into something else. This debate will continue to go on, but honestly, it takes just as much faith to believe in evolution as it does to beleive in creation

Answer 4

The controversy is that there is a temptation in Creation "science" to ascribe anything we don't currently understand to "God did it" read Genesis....end of questions and end of research. There is also the ridiculous notion put forward by Creationists called "intelligent design". In either case, Creationists ultimate authority is the bible and not science. Sad to say the bible was NOT (contrary to what some would have you believe) faxed down from heaven central (King James version of course).

Answer 5

There are people who use some Bible calculation to determine that the world is only a couple thousand years old, and that goes against evolutionary theory which says that changes happened over millions of years. The "God created the world in six days" part also goes against a lot of stuff in science, too.

Answer 6

Well the bible certainly does not mention anything about evolution. It explicitly says that all animals were created at about the same time. And biblical scholars say the bible doesn't allow for an earth that is more than a few thousand years old. Which we know not to be true.

Science and the Bible are mutually exclusive.

Answer 7

Creationism in all its form still has to assume that everything is 1) centered around the earth out of this vast universe and 2) from the center earth, everything is centered around humans.

Both of those require a great deal of arrogance to believe in. We are not alone, and are not really special. We have evolved more than anything else has on our little rock, but that does not mean we are the center of all else in the universe.

Answer 8

Creationism is to Macro as evolution is to micro out of Adam came Eve and out of her Cane & Able and only God can create and what is evolution or the evolving of something without the creation of it.

Answer 9

The question is really the evolution of life from non-life. Since life only comes from life, that question is the vital one.

Answer 10

Legitimate science and creationism are mutually exclusive. Pseudoscience and creationism are frequently enmeshed.