Why do Christians pick evolution to attack?

Question

I ask this because it seems completely illogical. They say no one has ever witnessed evolution. Well guess what, no one has ever witnessed an atom. They can see the outline of an atom with an electron microscope, but they certainly cannot see the sub-atomic particles. I don't see Christians protesting Chemistry in school. No one has ever seen a mountain form, but I don't see any Christians protesting geology in schools or more specifically tectonic plate shifting. No one has ever seen gravity. All anyone has ever seen is it's affects and yet I don't see Christians protesting gravity. Atoms, mountain formation, and gravity are all theories, and still schools teach them as facts and you never hear any Christians complain that these are all theories but for whatever reason, they protest evolution. What the hell?

Max, if you are correct about that 7% figure, it gives me a little more faith in this country.

Answer 1

Atoms don't threaten the fundamentalist world view as much as evolution does. To believe evolution is to not believe that the bible is 100% literal history. You can still believe it, but some parts have to be only in a figurative or allegorical sense. That bothers the fundies.

They hate the scientific study of cosmology the same way they hate evolution for pretty much the same reason--it conflicts with the creation myth.

Answer 2

The ideas of atoms, mountains, and so on do not specifically contradict a biblical text. But evolution does; the story as related in Genesis cannot be reconciled with the facts. Many Christians (but by no means all -- consider the Pope) prefer to believe the biblical tale as literal truth than to believe the proven facts. Which evolution now is; proof details to anyone who provides a valid e-mail address.

Answer 3

Some Christians do protest mountain formation. The really hardcore ones insist all mountains were formed during the Flood. They have to, or their whole world view of creation and thus their faith in the accuracy of the bible, and of all the rest of their faith the, would be destroyed.

Ironically many of the people most desperate to make rediculous arguments about evolution are the brightest believers. It's because they recognize evolution and their religion cannot both be true, and they are the most desperate to reconcile the differences.

Answer 4

People protest against anything and everything they perceive as a threat to their standard beliefs. They refuse to look past of what they've been taught and the turn a blind eye to new ideas, discoveries, especially knowledge. It is the fear of the new, the different that brings people to the point of unleashing severe persecutions against those bringing forth new knowledge.
One thing I find hard to understand thought is why God and evolution must be on opposite sides fighting each other in people's mind?
It took me some time to arrive to the following conclusion:
God generated a critical mass of energy required to form conscious units. These conscious units evolve from sub-atomic particles to galaxies according to the divine blue print each one carries.
As far as I’m concerned, God and evolution are the two sides of the same coin.

Answer 5

Hello,

"Many" Christians do not attack evolution and recently the Vatican said that one can certainly believe that it could be God's mechanism for creation. Teihard de Chardine as an example was a famous priest and evolutionary biology type in the early 20th century. That covers 1.1 billion Christians. Arguing about Creationism vs evolution is a waste of time in my opinion.
Follow the bible to know how to keep your creator happy and get along with your neighbor and hit the science books to learn how the universe and life works.

Regards,

Michael Kelly

Answer 6

A few hundred years ago, god was everywhere. He or she controlled the movement of the planets and stars, rain, everything. then science started to ask deeper questions and god was pushed away. Stars and planets are actually controlled by gravity, and rain is a essentially a physical phenomenon driven by the sun's energy. So, god has been relegated to the corners of knowledge, where science has not yet fully penetrated. "Where does life come from?" is one of those questions, that cannot be fully answered (mind you, that's different from evolution!). So in order to maintain a foothold, and not get pushed away completely, Christians pick one issue that is described in the bible and try to convince everybody that it is the correct belief. Never mind that there are many other explanations that are equally believable (or unbelievable) that have "written documentation" as well.

Answer 7

I think evolution theory simply provides biblical literalists with a target they can all agree on. One of the consequences of evolution theory is that the whole Adam and Eve thing doesn't look very plausible in a literal sense. The first Homo sapiens had ancestors that weren't Homo sapiens, and modern horses have ancestors that didn't look like modern horses, etc., and that just doesn't jive with a *literal* interpretation of Genesis. I think most literalists have made an uneasy peace with geology, chemistry, physics, and so on, or they've at least decided to pick their battles. Evolution theory, on the other hand, makes a literal interpretation of Genesis implausible, and they have a BIG problem with that.

Answer 8

The quote from Dawkins is taken out of context. Evolution has nearly not anything to do with risk. Genes have plenty to do with risk, evolution has plenty extra to do with how good some thing survives whilst uncovered to a replacing international. The international does not difference randomly, hence, it is not risk in step with se. The cause that folks attempt to disprove evolution this fashion is that this is a common logical fallacy probably misrepresented as a logical evidence. It is referred to as a "straw guy" argument, where a precept is misinterpreted, and then the misinterpretation is 'proved' flawed, hence with a bit of luck coercing the viewers into now not wondering matters any extra.

Answer 9

It's kind of funny because evolution is more important to Christians than it is to Atheists. If Evolution is true, then it is proof that God doesn't exist (or at least that the creation count in the Bible is false.) But what Christians don't realize, is that if Evolution is false, then God still doesn't exist.

It doesn't matter whether we evolved from lower forms or were created last Wednesday by a mad scientist from outer space. The Bible is fake. And God doesn't exist.

Answer 10

Simple - Genesis is the beginning (and the foundation) of the bible. All subsequent portions of the bible are based on that. If Genesis is found to be erroneous, the entire Bible collapses like a house of cards.

Think of it as building a 100-story building without a foundation (or removing a foundation to a 100-story building). Do you think it would stand?

This is why Christians have dug their heels in with respect to evolution, a concept so obvious one has to doubt the intelligence of those who think otherwise, just as we would wonder about someone who believed that the moon was made of cheese.