GOD works in mysterious ways?

Question

Let me preface, yes I'm an athiest, but I ask this only for new perspectives and information.....

1st- No we can not prove man evolved from ape.
2nd- Yes we can prove evolution has happened and continues to happen in many species.

So why when "God acts in mysterious ways" is a near maxim for christians, do so many christians oppose teaching evolution....?
Would the logical conclusion, from a religious prespective be that God created evolution?

Answer 1

I will answer this as best I can as a Creationist. I have no problem teaching evolution in school if it is taught as a theory. Having said that then why can we not teach Creationism at the same time as a theory? I do not believe man evolved from an ape and I do not think most evolutionist believe that either. But if a theory can be taught, why should we not teach all theories of the same subject. I thought school was for learning, that should mean learning all possibilities. Heaving Creationism out of the classroom on the basis of separation of religion and State, is really just a way for Atheists to have only their belief taught. If they are not afraid as they say, the science cannot be doubted, then teach both objectively and let the students discuss it.

Answer 2

You realize that the phrase "God moves in mysterious ways" is not a Bible statement. I believe it comes from Ben Franklin in the Poor Richard's Alamnac. The Bible says that we can understand the ways and moving of God, and that He has choosen to reveal Himself and his purposes to man.

In the scriptures are laid out the essentials of the "origin of man". That is that he is "made in the image of God". A claim NOT made for the other creatures. Has God used "cross-breeding" and "dominate/recessive" genes to allow the species to adapt and survive. Of course. But that has nothing to do with the "origin". The animals had to be there before they could "adapt". The genes needed to "develop" a trait had to be there before the trait could develop. So somewhere there was a starting point. That "point' is God.

For man, the "starting point" is God Himself, not a series of changes and chance. The Bible indicates that there was a specific moment in time when God made man directly from the elements of the earth. The date of 6000 years ago is not in the scriptures anywhere.

Religious "objection" to evolution is not that God couldn't have - or didn't - design life to be able to adapt and survive. Rather they object to the idea that evolution means that God is no longer needed. That somehow because animals can adapt, then religion is false. When the truth is that adaptation is one of the best proves that an "Intelligence" started the whole thing - and still maintains it.

But most of all, if evolution is allowed to reduce man to nothing more than a "chance" byproduct of change, then the whole moral structure of the world is altered. A human would not longer to morally obligated to care for the sick, help the poor, protect the weak, etc. Rather his moral obligation would be to help destroy such people as they would be weakening the gene pool and slowing evolution. Ethics would no longer be helping others, but helping yourself. In fact, it was on the basis of "eugenics", a "science" born out of the idea of survival of the fittess, that Hitler and the Nazis justified the murder of over 11 million "genetically inferior" persons.

So the Christians opposition to "evolution" is an opposition to the idea that it makes but God and man worthless.

Answer 3

actually we can prove we were evolved from apes scientists found evidence by examing some skeletons or a cave man frozen in ice the skeleton and skin is all that is preserved but anyways back to the question i,m an atheist too but one of the reasons why christians don,t like the teachings in evolution is because believing in a god takes faith right but believing you started out as a single celled blob and then turned into a primate and then finally turned into humans now that takes even more faith to believe

Answer 4

You make sense. Some many species of animals have evolved and are evolving. I am a Christian and don't put much worry into the theory of evolution debate. I think that the big problem is the evolving from apes thing that bothers Christians so much.

Answer 5

God did not need any intermediate stages(which should be millions of fossils) to create us in 'His' image.One athiest the other day was enthused about 'survival of the fittest' but as someone said in the past how did the turtle and the sheep remain? God's mysterious ways possibly in this context the forming of the human body from the spiritual that Adam & Eve descended down into.

Answer 6

Let's back up to your "2nd" -- what do you mean that you can "prove evolution"?

If you really could do that, I'd love to shake your hand -- because you'll have managed to do something that nobody in science has ever done.

Prove evolution, that is.

Darwin came up with a THEORY of evolution. And I emphasize the word THEORY for obvious reasons.

We oppose teaching evolution as fact, because it has never been proven to be a fact. Thus, there's no reason to jump to conclusions by saying that God created it.

Oh, did I mention that evolution is just a theory?

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Answer 7

Yes we can prove man evolved from an ape because there is a comprehensive fossil record to support the claim and the physiological similarities between man and primates such as a coccyx and an inability to synthesise vitamin c are cast iron proof of a shared ancestry.

Answer 8

Yes indeed God does work in mysterious ways. But His word says He created Adam, a man, in his own image and there is no such thing as evolution in that word and God's word cannot lie

Answer 9

I see no reason to disbelieve that God could have created everything with knowledge contained in it to evolve if necessary as man destroyed some creatures natural habitats and changed the climate on earth through misuse of resources. After all, he is omniscient.

Answer 10

Myself, I think we are a product of degeneration. The
Highest Life coming from what we call God. And that
Life being able to give "birth" to other Life, unitl we
eventually came into being.
If the simplist form of earthly life. A one-celled amoeba
can divide itself, and create another amoeba. Why couldn't the Highest form of Life, a "spirit" form, create
other spirit forms in like manner?