Creation versus Evolution. Where is the conflict?

Question

God created a Universe in which he placed creatures capable of reproducing themselves. The mechanism he designed allowed for characteristics to be passed on by both parents and for these various combinations to produce small changes from generation to generation. Successful changes are propogated whereas unsucessful changes die out. Where is the conflict?
We know that some gifted people are born sterile so these gifts cannot be passed on and we know that we are not identical copies of our parents so that some changes must have occurred in the process of being conceived. Unless the belief is that God hand makes each individual there does not appear to me to be any logical conflict in the theories of creation or evolution.

It is interesting that over half the people answering were either rejecting my faith in God, arguing against my views on a literal translation of the Bible or arguing against anything other than a literal interpretation of the Bible.
I am in fact a Buddhist, have no belief in a God, accept the Bible as a book with an acceptable moral code and a possible record of historic events and see evolution as being a demonstrable and measurable reality.
I do not know that the Bible is false or that God does not exist any more than I can know the converse. What I cannot understand is why the existence of a God has to logically rule out the mechanism of evolution or why the mechanism of evolution threatens the belief in a God.

Answer 1

Even the order things were created matches up with the order suggested by Theory of Evolution. Throughout history most great scientists have been people of faith - so there's nothing inconsistent.

Answer 2

I agree with you. There is really no conflict in the theories of evolution and creation. God may have used the process of evolution to create life forms on earth. But there are still many gaps in the theory of evolution for it to be accepted as fact. For instance: How did Homo habilis become Homo Sapiens? How was gravity formed? Why were there primitive life forms on earth?
I accept the theory of evolution as fact. Nonetheless, even if finally accepted by everyone, the theory will not disprove the existence of God. At best, the theory might change some Christian doctrines such as original sin.
Have a blessed and peaceful day

Answer 3

There may not be- however for the story of Adam and Eve to be literally true there is obviously a contradiction. If God created the whole earth in a literal seven days then evolution moved a whole lot faster back then. If you want to take the stance of the seven days actually referring to a longer period there doesn't seem to be a contradiction. I personally am more of the literal type. This seems to be completely insane to some people however evolution is wrought with it's own contradictions that sometimes we don't hear about these as often.

Answer 4

That's pretty much what I have been thinking too! If God is omnicient, why wouldn't He know know about science, and then why wouldn't He use it? It makes no sense to think that God, an omniscient, omnipotent Being, would just "poof" and "magic" us a world to live in. After all, matter cannot be created or destroyed, but changed in form. Genesis is pretty vague on the "how" of Creation, and I don't think that we can determine which way the Earth was formed. Why do we think that a "day" was a 24-hour period? Genesis does not say how long a "day" was. Just that such and such happened and was "called" the (blank) "day". I would hypothesize that it took God longer to divide the dry ground and water than to place man on the earth. So one "day" would be longer than another. And by the way, evolutionists, science is theories and hypotheses. Not conclusions. Educated hypotheses, yes. But not conclusions.

Answer 5

Evolution through Natural Selection does not require a designer. If god did indeed go thru that process, why? With an infinite amount of variables and chances that happened in order for all life to evolve, why did he take the risk. After all, of all the life that has ever existed on Earth, 99% of it is extinct. What are those, the failed creations? Again, doesn't say much about god's power.

Answer 6

It's the timeline that's the problem.

Evolution and the time line of scientific Earth says the earth is not 6,000 years old, as the Hebrew calendar suggests.
There are cavepaintings 4-5 times older than that.

That's the big picture problem with the timeline of creation and evolution.

The other problem with the timeline is that we were created (according to Genesis) twice.

Genesis 1:26-27 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

And then, Genesis 2:4 says God created man AFTER this week.

There's just too many contradictions in this mess for my likings.

Answer 7

Christian Creationsm= Adam and Eve, and all the stories about them

Evolution= I beileve it is a thoery that all life on earth started from a drop of water filled tiny organism that eventually evolved into to us humans

Answer 8

ppl can believe what they want 2.......When the end times come all questions will be answered. Evolution really isn't completely proven.....B/c they haven't found the missing link.( The one that links us 2 being evolved monkeys) When they find it then com talk 2 me.

Answer 9

Evolution does not preclude God. Bliblical literalism precludes reality.

Answer 10

to an extent you are right. that form of evolution is plausible. but not to the extent that says we came from monkeys or any other animal, no it is not plausible. God created us in his image and God does not look like a monkey.