developed from monkeys or god?

Question

im a chrisitian and i believe he made me and you and he died on the cross for me and everyone elses sins.

now that ive cleared that..
i asked a question on evolution being taught in schools
but not religion..

i go to a public school, and we cant speak on religion nor can the teacher.. but we do discuss evolution and i understand that evolution is a proven fact and the two can go hand in hand..

on my last question alot of people totally acted like
i was saying i was a stupdi christian that thinks
evoltuion is crap, which i did say.

but i didnt research it..

im saying that the subject that we do learn in science:
the one where we all developed from monkeys..
i dont get thet whole "story"



how can you be developed from monkeys..
when we all branched from adam and eve..

can someone explain this to me??
and still why we cant learn about religion in school
about all religions not just christianity!

Answer 1

That's what happens when you mix old myths with science. They don't go together. We didn't evolve from monkeys. We evolved from earlier primates. Monkeys evolved from them, too.

I can see students being taught comparitive religion, perhaps in college as part of a humanity course or even literature. I don't think we have teachers unbiased enough in high schools to really be objective about it. The main concern about religion in schools is teachers pushing religion on a student. That's not really the purpose of schools.

School's teach, churches preach. There is a difference.

And your religion is allowed in schools. You can pray all you want to your imaginary god, as long as it doesn't disrupt class.

Answer 2

Well let me clear the air by starting with the fact that I don't believe in God/Adam or Eve....

That said evolution is in a limited way a fact... it is also far from proven with regard to the monkey to man BS.

By proven it is simple that if you had a group of people that live on a island to themselves... and if these people decided that they would sacrifice every man or woman that failed to reach a certain height by the age of 12... you would over several generations end up with a group of taller people than if they didn't sacrifice the short. In that limited way evolution is really proven only it makes more sense to speak of it as genetics.

Now where evolution has never been proven and I doubt ever will is in explaining monkeys becoming chimps or men. These massive changes beyond simple charateristics just don't happen. Somewhere along the line people started confusing evolution with mutation and assuming them to be the same.

Frankly your question of whether we were from a monkey or God is a poor question. More appropriate question is where are we from? There are certainly more answers than the two you assumed would fill the bill. Maybe we are from space as some Indian tribes believe. Maybe we are the result of a mutation of some long extinct animal. Lots of possibilities, not just two.

Answer 3

We all didn't branch from Adam and eve.
There were other people on earth, the bible, if you read it right, tells you that, but not directly.
A couple of things you have to understand about the bible.
The Adam and Eve story is just that, a story.
It has a different meaning back then as it does today. (I don’t want to explain it.)
Not so sure they should be telling people we came from monkeys, we really don’t know that.
But we do know it was a common ancestry from monkeys.
I too think they should teach a little about all religions, you will be surprised how much they are the same.

Answer 4

We did not come from monkeys. Someone else will tackle that one I'm sure.

Many public schools do offer a comparative religion course for high school students. That is appropriate as an elective. Perhaps you should request that one be taught in your school. There are many other issues that schools have to deal with when organizing what is taught there, and it may not be cost effective or feasible to pay a teacher to cover that if other required areas need the funding or teachers more.

Answer 5

Evolution is well-supported by years of accumulating scientific evidence, so no reputable biologist doubts it is a fact. Adam and Eve are just myths that have no basis in reality. Evolution is science, and science, not religion, is to be taught in science classes. The First Amendment forbids a state religion. The two Hebrew creation myths in Genesis cannot have preference over any other such myths. The place for myths is not in science calsses.

Answer 6

Simple answer is this:

First, evolution does NOT teach that humans evolved from monkeys. It teaches that humans and other modern primates evolved from a more 'primitive' primate-like ancestor a long time ago. Over time, there were random mutations in the biology of this ancestor. Some of these mutations were bad but others were of either no benefit or hindrance OR were beneficial. By "beneficial" the theory means that it allowed those specimens with the mutation to survive longer, eat more efficiently, escape predators more easily, etc; there are a lot of things that a beneficial mutation can do. Over time, those specimens with the mutation became a larger proportion of the population than those without - because of the benefit. Over long periods of time, the mutation itself makes those WITH it so distinct from those without it that we label them different species.

That's a short version of things. It's not far-fetched. If you'd like more information, feel free to email me or send an IM.

Answer 7

The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. The Bible did say that God created all the beasts of the field before he created man. What's to say that the "dust of the earth" that He created Adam from didn't include a whole bunch of ape DNA?

Religion and science inhabit separate worlds. Religion tries to tell us Who created us, and why. Science doesn't care about that in the slightest, it's only concerned with how it all happened. Likewise, religion doesn't need to know the details of how it was done...it's enough to simply know that it happened.

The answer to your second question...why we can't learn about religion in school...is political. Personally, I think we do a grave disservice to our youth by failing to teach them a comparative study of religion. There are plenty of people who can teach a class like that without proselytizing. My thoughts are that if you're religion can't stand up to a fair, objective appraisal, then you probably need to find a better religion.

Answer 8

We Christians are in the world but not of it. That means that we are faced with many people who disagree with and ridicule what we believe. Until Jesus comes again, Satan will be the prince of this world. So we must be 'gentle as lambs and wise as serpents' giving to 'Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's.

Ask your parents what you should do. I tell my son to make sure that people know he is a Christian but to answer the tests the way the teacher wants. This is not lying if you have made clear that your opinion is different. It is giving to the teacher what is due him or her, proof that you have been taught the school approved text.

Answer 9

I must say, that in the first place, the two are, in my mind, not mutually exclusive. I think that, science explains a lot, and you cannot disregard, dinosaur bones, etc. But, on the other hand, how long is one day, or one second, to God? Who or what, did Adam and Eve develop from? It is my considered opinion, that, science is too rigid a discipline, and religion too, subject to interpretation to compare one to the other.

Answer 10

According to a recent question I asked here, you're being taught wrong.

Read:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvMBm6_5vxHlcRuy.HinTZDd7BR.;_ylv=3?qid=20071004125114AA37b2n

Read what the top contrinbutors here, mostly Atheists have to say.

We basically DON'T KNOW who the common ancestor was.

Not a SINGLE PERSON answered with CHIMPS or APES

The CHIMP/APE theory went out the door some time ago.

You're teachers are behind the times.

They are still living in the Scopes Trial era.

NO LONGER does EVOLUTION show MAN coming from an APE

Instead it shows MAN along side of various APES and CHIMPS as kindred or cousins all coming from a largely unknown source of origin.