Are there holes in my beliefs about evolution?

Question

I am a Christian who has learned enough about evoultion to know that I can't deny it. So I have tried to blend my faith and what I know about evoultion. I was wondering if anyone can show me if there are any holes in my idea, assuming for the sake of the question that there is a God. My thought is that God created the world and that the evidence for common ancestry could be expalined also by a common creator. So that the similarities throughout the different species shows not that we evolved from a single celled organism, but that everything was created by the same creator. I don't believe that the world that was created looks like it does today and that obviously many of the animals and plants would have looked a lot different that what we see today and that they have evolved to what they are now. I also don't believe that creation necessarily took place in 7 literal days. Please don't just tell me you think the Bible is a lie or that God doesn't exsist, that is another question

Answer 1

I think you are on the right path. I also believe that Christianity and evolution are not fundamentally incompatible.

But there is a hole here worth talking about:

> " the evidence for common ancestry could be expalined also by a common creator. "

Yes, possibly ... but it would be a creator who for some reason wanted it to *look* like common ancestry. it's all right there in the DNA of every living organism on the planet. DNA is like the spelling dictionary for proteins ... but this dictionary has "typos" (transcription errors) that creep in over time. Not only does the specific patterns of these typos give a clear picture of how one species is related by a more recent ancestor than another species ... and not only can this be done for *any* living organism (not just humans), but by knowing the *rate* at which these typos creep into the gene pool, we can even compute WHEN these different ancestors lived ... i.e. when did each branch diverge.

Some people object that the same protein in two species would obviously have the same DNA .. but it is more than the same protein ... it is not true that "insulin is insulin" ... there are specific differences in the coding of the specific brand of insulin used in each species ... they all serve the same function, but they are all spelled *slightly* differently ... and these spelling differences and similarities paint a clear picture of common ancestry.

And third, these spelling differences and similarities also occur in "junk DNA" ... this is DNA that does not serve any purpose or function (it doesn't code for proteins), but still shows these tell-tale patterns of common ancestry. Why would a creator go through the trouble of changing the specific sequences in junk DNA that has no function?

So it is *possible* that these similarities are the product of a common creator ... but if so, the creator went through a *lot* of trouble to make it *look* like ancestry.

But all that said, it is possible that God created the universe in such a way that evolution was not only possible, but inevitable. It is also possible that God specifically directed evolution at key moments, or even all moments. There is no way, scientically, to prove or disprove such a hypothesis ... but there is nothing incompatible with science about this belief. It is a perfectly valid hypothesis. It is just not a *scientific* hypothesis ... because there is no way to test it.

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P.S. At least two people here have brought up the "why are there still monkeys?" objection to evolution ... which is almost a mantra among creationists for reasons I cannot understand (because it is not only *easily* answerable, but *has* been answered, literally *hundreds* of times here on Yahoo Answers). The answer has partly to do with clarifying that evolution does not hold that humans evolved *from* monkeys/apes, but that these all shared a common ancestor. Thus it is as nonsensical to point to two *existing* species (which by definition are the same "age" ... products of exactly the same amount of evolution on the earth) and say that one evolved *from* the other, or that one should evolve *into* the other in the future, as it is to point to two existing humans of the same age and saty that one is the parent of the other, or that one can develop *into* the other as it ages in the future. So the "why are there still monkeys?" question show tremendous lack of understanding of evolution.

It is also bizarre logic ... if evolution *required* the descendant species to *replace* the ancestor species, then by definition there would be only one species on earth! So people who raise this argument either think that (A) the consensus scientists for over 150 years are all such complete morons that they have overlooked this *simple* objection ... or (B) that scientists *don't* believe that evolution requires a descendant species to *replace* the ancestor. The fact that these creationists conclude (A) shows that this brand of creationist not only misunderstands evolution completely, but has a deep-seated disdain for scientists in general.

But when creationists combine the "why are there still monkeys?" question with things like "why hasn't something higher than humans evolved?" or "why are monkeys not still evolving?" then you see they have an even deeper misunderstanding of evolution than just the details of primate evolution. They imagine evolution to be some sort of constant transformational process, which it is, but (1) this transformation can produce radically different results if two branches of a species get isolated from each other ... in fact it can produce new species (as happened with humans and other primates); (2) this transformation is affected by environment acting on chance mutations ... if the environment or the mutations are a little different, the results can be *very* different ... which is why an existing species will never evolve into another *existing* species; and (3) this transformation is *extremely* slow ... asking why we don't see human or ape evolution in the last 10,000 years is like asking why we haven't seen growth in a tree in the last 10 minutes.

Answer 2

There are so many unknowns when it comes to both evolution and creationism. Evolution cannot be proven, but neither can creationism. As Christians, we believe that God created Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This poses question to the THEORY of evolution. If evolution were possible and we indeed came from apes, then why hasn't a higher being evolved, one greater than the homo sapien? And how can there still be monkeys and apes around?

I do believe that between populations and with differences in location of animals comes speciation. To me, it is rediculous to say that an elephant wanted to swim in the water so bad that it grew fins over its legs and became a whale. If that were the case, where are the in-between animals?

Take birds, for example. Birds are everywhere, and there are probably millions of different species of them. Different parts of the world will have a slightly different variation of the same bird but they don't change from being a bird to being a lizard or a fish.

And there are a few animals/plants in existence today that have been around for millions of years. How come they haven't evolved into something new?

The bible talks about so many animals that we are very familiar with, but they are all still the same animal. Maybe they used to be bigger or smaller, but they are still what they used to be.

God created everything in His perfect will and for His perfect purpose. Maybe He related all living things as a way of organization in the world... who knows?!

only God!

Something I was thinking about the other day was the fact that practically everything organic has carbon in it. Humans are made of a lot of carbon. The earth is also made of carbon... hmm

theres so much evidence of a divine Creator!!

Answer 3

You're compromising, and falling into the trap of trying to have the facts fit into your beliefs. You say that evidence for common ancestry can "also" be explained by a common creator, but at what point do you think that we were created? Why would there need to be the same DNA in a mouse as there is in humans if we were created? Extrapolate the concept further back in time, say, 3 billion years, and see where that leads you.
It is important that you keep asking questions. Just don't expect the answers to always fit into preconceived notions.

Answer 4

I am also a Christian who believes in both evolution and God. Someone very wise once told me, Religion is based of Faith. You just know it is right. You can't PROVE it. Evolution on the other hand, is studied as science is studied. Hypotheses were developed, observed and interpretted. It can be proven. I have full faith in God; He told the writers of the Bible what to write, and like all authors, some of the writing is left for open interpretation.The Bible doesn't necessarily need to be taken literally, word for word. This is God's way of giving us free will to make our own decisions.

Answer 5

Even though you are Christian, I would urge you to study other religions of the world. Each has it's own creation myth. If you study all of these myths, how can you decide which one is correct? Is the Christian/Jewish one better than any of the others? Where did each religion's god come from?

When you looked at evolution, you started with the premise that there was no such thing and then looked at the evidence. When you look at god, do you start with the premise there is no such thing and look at evidence? Or do you start with the premise that "yes, there is god"?

Keep thinking! Don't just believe!

Answer 6

You know there are gazillions of contridictions everywhere. It's pretty naive to think eveything in the world should work out nice and neat. It's just not like that.

You have to just take science as science and religion as religion. As two separate school of thoughts. This is way lot of people approach this evolution thing. Just treat two as two different ways to looking at our world.

Only fundamentalists believe Earth is few thousand years old or created in few days or whatever. There are lot of things in Bible that is interpreted in hundreds of different ways. I don't think anybody can be sure and say 'this is what the Bible is saying.' How can a person come up to you and say he or she knows what God meant to say in the Bible? Bible cannot be taken literally in modern world. It's just not practical.

Also remember that other religions have their own creation theories. And there are lots of different religions out there. But there is just one science. It should be something that unite all those different groups of people.

Answer 7

Faith is believing in something that cannot be proven. God cannot be proven as this past agnostic turned Christian can attest to. I am very educated in evolution but believe that God has put us all here. Regardless of how we got here, we have to remember that it is our relationship with God that we must hold dear and personal. Your journey to the Cross will very likely be differnt than mine. Some choose to look at faith as life insurance believing that having a relationship with God will keep them from Hell. I believe that the greatest gift God gave us was each other and we should try to love and enjoy one another to the best of our ability. Blessings.

Answer 8

I have to reply to this comment:
"Two is Charles Darwin tells us that man came from the ape/monkey-thing theory. But it it ever occur to you that if man shifted from these species to a homo sapien, why in the world there's still apes monkeying around?"

Just say that the ancestors of apes are walking along a path that forks. One group decided to go down one path and the other chooses to go down another. One paths leads to humans and the other path leads to modern apes. We did not come from apes, we DIVERGED from the common ancestor of modern apes. Modern apes are in no way "primitive", they have simply taken a different evolutionary path to us. And maybe that's due to God's work.

I don't think you have to poke holes into the theory to believe in God. You could believe that God created the first life forms and let it evolve on its own accord, while watching over all of it.
But you could also believe that God plays a subtle hand at things. He influenced things so that some fish followed the evolutionary path that lead to land animals or that provided the means for larger brains so that humans could come about.

I have had lecturers that have believed in both evolution and God and they have gotten along with the Theory of Evolution just fine. It's really up to you to choose what things to believe and what not to believe.

Answer 9

In my opinion, God didn't leave out the details to confuse us concerning how we arrived at the point we are at. He has revealed to us exactly what He has wanted us to know. If He created the universe for us, then He obviously could have left us the blueprints for exactly how He did it. He didn't because to do so would eliminate the need for faith and for us to search Him out. He might as well simply have Jesus crucified and resurrected every three days so that we could all see what He is capable of doing. I believe that if we ever get enough information to completely describe and understand what He did, then we will have found the unified set of equations that will lead directly to Him. At that point or before, God will call those that already believe in Him home as faith will no longer be required.

Answer 10

I am also in the same boat, where I beleive in God but also evolution...I also beleive the bible does not have ot be read literally.....I can accept that God started the ball rolling, but evolution has taken place after that.
I chose to accept this and I personally don't feel any problem in doing so!