Evolution: What makes Christians think?

Question

They are offended and demumanized if we were the evolved descendants of different lifeforms?

Answer 1

Evolution does not offend me, it is just that you teach it as science when it is not.... That is what bothers me the most

Answer 2

dze said "if we were evolved there should at least be some life forms close to our intelligence .... im not offended by it .. it just doesnt add up and i dont think its the truth ..."

Actually, other primates are close to our intelligence in many ways. The main difference between our brain and theirs is that we have a much larger neocortex. The neocortex appears to be a very general purpose auto-associative hierarchical temporal memory. We use it for everything from vision to motor control to abstract thinking. The fact that we have a lot more of it explains why we are more intelligent. It's quite likely that the genetic mutation that makes us have more of it is relatively simple, since all the mutation had to do was to cause more neocortex to be made, rather than a whole new kind of brain stuff to be made.

Answer 3

They are offended by the reality of a universe that is more grand and beautiful than they ever comprehended.

Here's a memorable quote from Ann Druyan, author and wife of the late Carl Sagan:

"In four hundred years, we evolved from a planet of people who are absolutely convinced that the universe revolves around us. No inkling that the Sun doesn't revolve around us, let alone that we are but a minuscule part of a galaxy that contains roughly a hundred billion stars. If scientists are correct, if recent findings of planets that revolve around other stars are correct, there are perhaps five hundred billion worlds in this galaxy, in a universe of perhaps another hundred billion galaxies. And it is conceivable, even possible, that this universe might one day be revealed to be nothing more than an electron in a much greater universe. And here's a civilization that was absolutely clueless four or five hundred years ago about its own tiny world and the impossibly greater vastness surrounding it. We were like a little bunch of fruit flies going around a grape, and thinking this grape is the center of everything that is. To our ancestors the universe was created for one particular gender of one particular species of one particular group among all the stunning variety of life to be found on this tiny little world."

and

"When I say "spiritual," it's a complicated word that has some unpleasant associations. Still, there has to be a word for that soaring feeling that we experience when we contemplate 13 billion years of cosmic evolution and four and a half billion years of the story of life on this planet. Why should we give that up? Why do we not give this to our children? Why is it that in a city like Los Angeles, a city of so many churches and temples and mosques, there's only one place like this Center for Inquiry? And that it's only us here today? Fewer than a hundred people in a city of millions? Why is that? Why does the message of science not grab people in their souls and give them the kind of emotional gratification that religion has given to so many?"

and


"Perhaps Genesis should be read as an ironic story. Here's a god who does not give us the knowledge of good and evil. He knows we don't know right from wrong. Yet he tells us not to do something anyway. How can someone who doesn't know right from wrong be expected to do the right thing? By disobeying god, we escape from his totalitarian prison where you cannot ask any questions, where you must never question authority. We become our human selves."

Answer 4

As a Christian it is not based on the teachings of the Bible. God created apes and those after their kind. And he created the race of man through Adam and Eve but evolution or genetic adaption occurred where there are many races and all shapes and sizes. This type of evolution is biblical and scientific for a man is still a man. And this is true for every type of apple tree or orange tree or rose.

Where the science offends me is where we say all life forms evolve upward from a single celled entity. That is macro-evolution is totally unscientific.

Answer 5

Not sure what demumanized is....but I can tell you I don't care what anyone tries to brainwash me with on evolution. I will never believe some ape/monkey thing evolved into a human. It's totally illogical. And if it was so, there should not be any left....they should have all turned human by now. But, everytime I've been to the zoo in my life, they are still there. No one can explain how that could happen though. In addition, God created the earth, humans and animals. That's just the way it is. It is the "therory" of evolution for a reason.....because it's NOT a proven fact.

Answer 6

To "create" means to put and keep something in existence. God is Creator because He puts and sustains everything in existence. He is the maker and final goal of everything that exists, all things visible and invisible.

The truth of creation means that God's loving creativity builds into each of us a meaning, purpose and destiny which nothing can take away from us.

Does the Genesis account of creation contradict the scientific theory of evolution? No. In affirming that God is the ultimate cause of all that exists, Genesis gives its ultimate meaning and purpose - "Why" the world exists. It does not explain "how" the physical world came to be in its present condition, which the theory of evolution tries to explain.

The Catholic Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man's body developed from previous biological forms, under God's guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul.


Grace and peace!

Answer 7

apparantly christians don't own dictionaries. mutations of a sort is what causes evolution, its paired along with the need to adapt. hmm hows the best way to explain this. when a baby is born with a congenital disease(one which happens due to abnormal growth[mutation]) if it grows up healthy enough to have children there is the same chance that their child will have that same defect as it is for any parent picked at random from any where in the world.this is scenario a which explains how things can be different and not continue to be different in future generations, but scenario b is more to your question. someone can undergoe a mutation at a given time in life but usually during fetal developement which is directly in their genes, these mutations can be carried on to future generations, yet the same mother and father can have another child with no mutation, and that child will not have a hereditary chance of passing its siblings mutation to its own offspring. this allows two completely different lines of offspring

Answer 8

The theory of Evolution makes alot of sense actually! But Christians, probably like any other religion, go with what their faith teaches them which in this case is that God created all humans. I dont think anyone has the right to judge anyones beliefs, whether you believe in the theory of evolution or not. NOBODY KNOWS THE TRUTH so nobody is right here.

Answer 9

The christian philosophy gives legitimacy in the ability to think and also its epistemology. If God chose evolution to evolve man he could of done it. However he decided to create man in his image and likeness. Christians don't find evolution offending but rather it is non christians that find a submission and belief in God offending, for the Gospel is offensive.

Answer 10

Calculus, advanced physics, Revelation, and the human mind makes me think.

Your additional details are put as a statement, but your punctuation is a question-mark, so I do not understand what to put.

Answer 11

I am Christian. The idea of evolution does not offend me, nor does it demoralize me. It actually makes perfect sense. However, I have faith in God. My faith in God is stronger than my faith in science.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it" -- Aristotle.

Cheers ^_^