For Christians who don't believe in evolution?

Question

Look at flu viruses. They keeps adapting to the vaccines we use. We see it. It's a fact. It's happening now. That's evolution. It's not micro or macro, it's EVOLUTION. Micro and macro-evolution are the same thing. It just takes a long time and a lot of little changes to see the big changes.

know it all: But it could if given enough time.

Soon2BeMommy: They may or may not be doing fine now, but you are not looking at the big pictures. It takes hundreds of thousands or millions of years for larger animals to noticably evolve. How many natural events could have happened in the last million years that needed to be adpated to? Floods, volcanoes, chaning predators, changing food availability, deforestation, desertification.

RealDeal: You are playing word games. Nature does not use labels. It's only a "flu virus" if you call it that.

Paul S: Brilliant answer! Couldn't have said it better myself.

Answer 1

"Know it all" and "Real Deal" gave answers that perfectly illustrate the creationists' confusion about this. When that flu virus mutates, you have a generation of organisms that are qualitatively different from those they came from. They have a variety of different characteristics.

Are they still "flu viruses", or are they no longer "flu viruses"? How could we tell?

Now, if you understand science, you recognize that question is similar to the questions "How can scientists tell what the name of a hurricane is?" and "How do they know that one that hit New Orleans was named 'Katrina'?". In short, the question of whether the new organisms are flu viruses or not is a matter _of what we call them_, not of some inherent essence of the organisms.

The creationist position on this is essentially:
"if a population of dogs were to evolve over time, becoming larger and larger, with less and less fur and instead a grey, wrinkley skin, and with longer and longer and more flexible snouts, and bigger ears and smaller tails, untill they looked and acted just like what we call 'elephants', then you'd have a population of dogs that looked like elephants".

The biologists' position is:
You'd have a population of elephants.

You tell me who is being ridiculous.

Now, the creationist reading this may protest "but that can't happen". Well, if you've already accepted what you call "microevolution", then you've admitted that it could happen. Of course it wouldn't be dogs turning into elephants - no-one says that happens. But it would be populations of the earlier versions of horses, dogs, elephants, whales, snakes, and human beings turning the current versions of those organisms, and that's exactly what DID happen.

If you believe that evolution can cause the characteristics of populations to change across generations (what creationists call "microevolution"), then you believe that evolution can change a population of organisms that we call a certain species into a population of organisms that we call a different species (what creationists call "macroevolution").

Now, the creationist may desperately decide that he'd better go back then to denying what he calls "microevolution". There are a couple of problems with that tactic. First of all, we have literally tens of thousands of examples of natural selection causing changes across generations of a population of organisms. There are large and very profitable industries that depend on that fact. Denying it would be akin to denying that objects fall to Earth when dropped.

Secondly, evolution is really a matter of mathematical necessity. If you understand what evolution claims, it becomes impossible to imagine how it could _fail_ to occur, given the conditions it requires. Those conditions are essentially just:
- Organisms that are not all identical to each other,
- That breed and pass along characteristics,
- And that some of those characteristics have an impact on the number of offspring that a particular organism has.

Given those three conditions, evolution cannot fail to occur. You'd have to tell one heck of a tall tale to deny it. Now, you can choose to deny that those conditions are true for human beings. That's a REALLY desperate ploy, but creationists are a desperate lot, and not too inclined to worry about how ridiculous their claims are. So the creationist would be forced to say either:

"All people are identical to each other"
or
"Children do not inherit any characteristics from their parents"
or
"The characteristics that children inherit from their parents have nothing whatsoever to do with the number of children that they have in turn".

If you're willing to defend creationism to that extreme, I gotta wonder what color the sky is on your planet.

Answer 2

I used to be raised as a Christian however I nonetheless accept evolution. I will explain why. God said, "Let there be gentle. " And He noticed the light used to be excellent. I'm pretty certain that when the large Bang occurred, there used to be various light. I do not suppose the old testomony was once meant to be taken literally. Adam and Eve are symbolic of society at the time. I suppose this is the factor in history when man began to question himself about his possess morals. Possibly men and women the place starting to be much less nomadic than up to now and as a consequence needed to take responsibility for the relationships that they had with others around them. Most Christians are living via the brand new testomony. These are the teachings of Jesus. They are common morals that every person should are living via.

Answer 3

The "evolution theory" may have a few points if I read Darwin's whole book about it, but to my knowledge Christians do not believe in evolution because we believe, as written in the Bible, that God created man and all species of plants and animals. It is even offensive to some like myself to be put in the category of animals because of the "evolution theory. "

Answer 4

I do not see this as any proof of evolution at all,the flu virus is still a flu virus,it may well adapt but this is not evolving in your terms,a soldier on the battle field has to adapt to many different circumstances but he certainly does not evolve.

Answer 5

I don't buy that. Your flu virus stayed a flu virus no matter how much adapting it did. True Christians believe in the Bible's account of creation which leaves no room for evolution. Animals and humans reproduce after ther own kind. Gen. 1:21.

Answer 6

OK, let me get this straight, there is no God, and we are descended from flu viruses? All you have proved is that flu viruses are tricky and we can't understand them. My mom is here, AH CHOO!!!! LOL
Oh wait, i get it. Dinosaur monkeys with the flu!

Answer 7

As a Christian, I do not believe in macro-evolution, but I do believe in micro-evolution, as in a tadpole turning into a frog.

Answer 8

Let's see which one should I pick for my in-laws: Neanderthal, pithiandrofur(?), Piltdown Man, Peking Man, Nebraska Man(Zinathropus-robust southern ape). No pretend apes are in MY family tree, sorry.

Answer 9

I have no problem with evolution as survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed, only the strong survive.

Viruses evolve only to keep from being killed.

There are still apes, alive and well, and birds, and donkeys, and lizards and fish.... why in the world did they need to evolve? They are obviously doing just fine.

Answer 10

Evolution is about as possible as an explosion in a printing shop resulting in an unabridged dictionary.