Do you think the theory of natural selection is compatible with religious beliefs? Explain your answer?

Answer 1

Yes. Not all religious people regard mythology as literal truth. I think that delusion is limited to a very vocal minority. Even the Catholic church has accepted the theory of evolution as compatible with their beliefs, although they still believe in a God of the gaps.

Answer 2

Hmm. I would say parts of it in the respect that we modern people are in general several inches taller than our ancestors due to better nutrition in general. I have also been reading up on how even small microorganisms and parasites get smarter and stronger with time. From a Mormon point of view, this world is designed on a telestial level, or after the law of the jungle, for the most part. At some point in time after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory. I am a little fuzzy on whether or not the earth will be changed to a terrestrial level first, or something in-between, as the resurrection will happen in stages. The peace during the Millennium under the reign of Jesus Christ includes the elimination of the law of the jungle, where wild animals will become more docile, and as predicted by scripture in the Bible in Isaiah 11 and also 65, safe enough for a child to play around them or lead them easily. So in that respect, natural selection will not apply much anymore, as there is no need to prevail at the risk of being killed or eaten.

Answer 3

I've been thinking about this lately, actually. My opinion at the moment is, yes, the theory of natural selection is compatible with my religious beliefs. I would even say that it is compatible with the story of creation in Genesis. I believe that God created the animals with the ability to adapt to their environments. Why wouldn't He? Would He tell the birds and fish to "be fruitful and increase in number" and not give them the ability to do it? I have to think that He would not.

Answer 4

Both Evolution and Natural selection are compatible with religious beliefs. Both are dealing with the Physical body rather than the SOUL. WHICH IS A SPARK(facet) of whatever you think started things as we know them.

Answer 5

Natural selection is entirely compatible with religious belief. However, it's not compatible with a literal reading of Judeo-Christian-Islamic mythology, nor is it compatible with the notion of an all-powerful, rational, all-loving god.

At least I haven't found a way to depict the destruction of thousands of species upon the entirely amoral criterion of reproductive capacity as the action or preferred mechanism of such a god.

All the best,

Lazarus

Answer 6

It is perfectly compatible with my religious belief. I believe that the fall of mankind was such that humankind lost their immortality and put on the frailty of mortality by sinning against Almighty God. This caused genitic mutation to begin in human beings and such has continued until this time when human knowledge has reached the ability to manipulate these genes. Humans are experimenting because of our lack of knowledge as to Our Creators purpose and His Pattern for our gene pool. We become weaker and wiser but are no closer to His Plan.

Answer 7

I think religion springs from our attempt to personify the unknown. We're more likely to mistake a lamppost for a person than a person for a lamppost -- in other words, we see sentient creatures where there are no such creatures. This have very obvious biological reasons -- false positives are better than false negatives. If you see a tree branch and you think it's a wolf, you've only lost a shot of adrenaline, but if you make the opposite mistake, you're dead.

That translates into superstition, unfortunately: if the volcano erupts, it must be angry. Perhaps a sacrifice would appease it?

Answer 8

Sure, natural selection is compatible religious belief. God is all-powerful, so if he wants natural selection then let there be natural selection.

Answer 9

I think natural selection happens within families but not orders.

as in kingdom phylum class order family genus species.

In scripture it says "kind after kind" and this to me is equivalent with "family after family" in scientific terms.

And so I think God has created families which are then released upon Earth to adapt as the environment dictates through natural selection, developing new genus/species within but never transversing the family threshold of genetic identity. Thus life is created and it evolves but from a prototype population of each created family and the bible describes the dinosaur quite well as Behemoth in Job 40.

Answer 10

What if god made it such that life would start from nothing and see how it would turn out instead of just snapping everything into existance? He could have just set up the rules and pushed the ball to get it rolling (reference to big bang) What if he was the big bang and then actually does very little? and somebody wrote the bible and was horribly confused?