Why can't the theory of evolution and creationism coexist?

Question

Evolution is more of a explanation of how we became what we are. It's just a way of catergorizing life. It doesn't necessarily have to threaten the existence of God. Perhaps we just finally realized how God created us?

However Christianity and various other religions instantly discarded it and labeled it evil and apostatizing. Perhaps they just jumped to a conclusion too quickly? Which begs to ask the question, how many other conclusions are they too proud to admit may be wrong?

Thank you to the people here who have used enough deductive logic to see that I am only questioning from a strictly non-personal point of view. So far those are the best answers I've gotten.

Science is always agreeable to change once it is proven beyond a doubt that the given theory is wrong. It is a never-ending search therefore you don't read a schoolbook like you read the Bible. To put the two books on the same playing field alone is to sorely underestimate the Bible's power/severely overestimate the life of a science book.

Answer 1

Yes, that is definitely possible. The problem is not that evolution does away with god, as ID people would have you believe. The problem is that evolution supposes that before there were humans there was already death, and many christians believe that death (also death of animals) is a consequence of the original sin. And a day in Genesis would not be a thousand years but more like a billion. And the number of generations between the first humans and the time of Abraham are considerably more than even the most generous calculations would allow. The very fact that human civilization is just a blink of an eye compared to the eons of time that precede it conflicts with christianity's humanity centered conception of the universe. So it's not really that evolution is the actual target of critique I think, but that evolution is part of a view of the universe that is seriously at odds with the christian view in which humanity is the pinnacle.

Answer 2

Christianity and evolution can coexist, and do in the minds of many people who understand that the creation story is metaphorical and not to be taken literally.

However, a literal interpretation of the Biblical creation story and the scientific theory of evolution are completely incompatible. This is because, among other things, in the Biblical creation story Adam was created as a man, and survived for some amount of time, before woman was ever created. The creation and survival of the male gender without the female is scientifically and logically ijmpossible in primates (humans) and most other life forms.

Scientifically, the male human (Adam) could not have existed without the pre-existence of a female (a mother), and the female (Eve) could not have existed without the pre-existence of a male (father).

Answer 3

Biblically, evolutionism and creationism cannot exist. It doesn't fit. If evolution happened, I'd have to say that the entire Bible is unreliable.

My question is, when we assume that science books are correct in saying that evolution happened, are we "jumping to a conclusion too quickly"? Have we examined the evidence for and against evolution? Perhaps evolutionary scientists have assumed too much...

EDIT:
You mention that science books change...they don't change as much as you think. Some diagrams used for years as evidence for evolution have since been proven fraudulent...yet still come up in text books.

Don't give too much credit to those who create textbooks. If you've read "Lies My Teacher Told Me," you would see how difficult the textbook situation is. As a former history teacher, I rarely used our books because of that.

Answer 4

It disturbs me that out of nineteen solutions on your query, simplest 2 or 3 truthfully addressed the *gist* of your query, which as I appreciate it was once... Do creationists reject the idea of evolution altogether or simply because it pertains to humans? The reply is that a few reject all of it, however many (and I accumulate so much) simplest reject the side approximately people. Even many that reject it altogether commonly simplest achieve this *considering the fact that* of the way it pertains to people. That's wherein they attention, obsessively... "I did not come from no monkey" or a few similarly revealing assertion approximately the denier's lack of knowledge of evolution concept. That's considering the fact that those men and women rather could not care much less approximately it rather then the way it pertains to us... and normally have simplest the flimsiest proposal what the idea even says! The quandary for so much deniers, of path, is if people developed from different lifestyles varieties over billions of years, it does not jibe with the Biblical account of people being created in a poof by way of God. But that is most often a quandary for Bible literalists. The immense majority of Christians in these days, it sort of feels to me, say that the Bible will have to be learn as a choice of allegories, no longer as a traditionally and scientifically perfect account. The "allegory" camp, consequently has no quandary squaring up the evolution of people with Biblical scripture; the 2 can co-exist of their minds. They simply remind us that God no less than *began* the entire factor. When technology exhibits how abiogenesis happened -- and I think that it is going to -- I surprise what number of believers will nonetheless dangle to their religion, and to what creative rallying factor they will subsequent fall again. Each new release of Christians, it might look, evolves no longer simply bodily however dogmatically. As historical past, technology and rationale display critical issues with scripture, they without difficulty difference their view of that passage from literal to metaphorical. Yeah, that does imply that a few of them refute all of the helping proof for evolution which technology has accumulated for greater than a century approximately no longer simplest the animal kingdom, however geology, botany and paleontology as good. A top notch degree of self-fable, stubbornness and/or lack of knowledge.

Answer 5

Evolution makes sense. Evolution is basically a simple mathematical learning algorithm, where a biological system learns to play nature's survival game.

Creationism on the other hand does not make sense. Creationism basically makes the claim that complexity requires a prior greater complexity to create it. This either leads to infinite regression or contradiction, neither of which are logically pleasing.

Answer 6

Please do not assume that fundamentalist born-again Christians represent all Christians, since they are actually a small, mostly American group whose theology was 'revealed' about 150 years ago. Most Christians have not discarded the theory of evolution, which is considered totally compatible with Catholic and main-stream Protestant theology. The people who consider science to threaten the existence of God have a very immature understanding of both science and God. Science reveals to us what God created in nature but does not have an opinion about the existence or non-existence of God outside of nature.

Answer 7

You're making an incorrect generalization. Many believers in God also believe in evolution and the Big Bang. This is not a new concept, but has been going on since the 1800's. Science and believing in God can co-exist.

Answer 8

Because creationism is another way of getting rid of scientific thought. Creationism only promotes being close-minded individual. If creationism was true than ALL the many different bibles would tell the story of it exactly the same way, but it doesn't.

Answer 9

Though it is the position of many, including it being the official stance of the Roman Catholic church, it's not as simple and tidy as that.

Genesis 3:16, for example.
Painful childbirth for women as God's curse, or as a consequence of the development of big brains?

There's lots to the process of evolution which is wasteful, contingent, and even cruel (if intent is implied*).
It deosn't sit perfectly well with a LOVING creator.
Even Christian creationists have to invoke "the fall" to explain why so much of creation is NOT "good".


*"Sorry about that meteor, dinosaurs, but I needed some new ecological niches."

Answer 10

Evolution: Complexity from simplicity.
God: Complexity from complexity.

^ Contradiction!

That, and God can't be all that much of a god to be behind such a wasteful process as evolution (over 99% of all species die).