christians only?

Question

this is not to argue creation evolution abiogenesis or big bang. this is a simple and honest theorizing.
like. what would it mean if.
im not saying it is or it isnt. and this is for christians only.
i will post a seperate thread for the non christians.

ok.
there are people who call themselves christian who have no problem with evolution, but there are those who do.
i am talking to both groups.

for a christian who believes in evolution.. not just MICRO or speciation- but macro.

how does it affect your faith, or, does it really matter
how do you feel for the unbelievers who use evolution as an excuse to avoid christianity?

for those who call themselves christians and don't believe in evolution.
how does not accepting affect your faith as it is, does it matter,are you more faithful for it?

how much difference will it make to you if you did believe in evolution or if God said that it was true and all you heard from christian apologetics were all disproven just like the fetus sketches.

Answer 1

Hi bagsy84

This is a good question, it is the very question I struggled with for several years when I finally became a Christian. Since I struggled with it as a Christian, I don't think the answer would change my belief in God. I discovered the necessity for God without considering evolution and, with or without evolution, the necessity for God is still there. You see, without God there is no foundation, no objective standard to judge what ought to be, how we should behave, or what justice is. All there can be is human ideas which are subject to the whims fashion or the whims of power.

That said, after much study I came to the conclusion that evolution, in the macro sense of a common ancestor from which all life descends, is false. As Tina wrote, there are some tremendous leaps of faith in atheistic naturalism. But even the problems noted by Tina are rather simple when you consider that all the parts that make up a cell, the DNA, RNA, enzymes, and proteins are only parts that have no function outside the cell. It is like the carburetor sitting in the corner of my garage, without the car that it fits into it is simply a lump of metal.
http://www.ameaningfulworld.com/

Although I had concluded that evolution was a fatally flawed theory, I still didn't quite know what to think about the age of the earth. I was so well indoctrinated with evolutionary ideas that the idea of a young earth was inconceivable. Furthermore, there is the story of the Flood, how could that be true?

Then one day someone gave me a book by a "young earth" creationist, "Why Won't They Listen?" http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/product/Why-Wont-They-Listen,4519,224.aspx and I read it. It demolished many of the preconceptions I had about the age of the earth. It did't convince me, but it opened my mind to other possibilities and kept me searching.

I have found that there are good reasons, sound, scientific reasons, to doubt the multi-billion year age of the earth. None of them are conclusive, there is no silver bullet, but they are at least as convincing as the "old earth" arguments. So today I find myself, against all expectation, a young earth creationist.

Would a "siver bullet" proof for evolution or for an old earth demolish my belief in God? No it wouldn't. As I said at the beginning, my belief in God came from another source. The arguments against evolution have simply confirmed what I already knew from my studies of justice and ethics. As some wit once commented, "If God didn't already exist it would have been necessary for us to invent him." There is more evidence for Gods existence than there is for human invention.

I hope this helps.
Dave

Answer 2

Why do people _insist_ on mixing science with religion?
They are quite capable of existing independent to one another and shouldn't be compared. Religion requires Faith - a Belief without proof, a willingness or desire for this thing to be true and infallible.
Science requires constant evaluation and re-evaluation. You don't "believe" in Evolution - you accept that the theory is reasonable. In science, most everything is theoretical - it is just the "best idea currently available." Some theories, like Gravity, are given the term "laws" because they have held reliable for so long. However, if someone were to come up with a method of sound deductive reasoning to say why Gravity is wrong and a theory on something else that causes the effects of gravity, it would be considered. I personally think that Evolution is how life has gotten to this stage, it seems reasonable and logical to me.
It also seems reasonable and logical to me that the person who wrote Genesis over two thousand years ago (and more than that, because the Old Testament is from Before The Common Era), lived in a very different world to us, with very different levels of understanding and education. When even the highly educated had trouble believing that the earth was not flat, how is it reasonable to expect them to understand something like evolution or tectonic movement etc? It is much easier to make an analogy, and to answer the unanswerable this way. There is record of people using this method for as long as humanity has kept records - telling a simpler story to explain something that is too hard or impossible to explain.

But I don't believe that people should confuse Faith and Science. They work fine without one another, and I think we are, as a species, at a stage where we can see that the world was not created in seven days - all evidence to the contrary. However, we could perhaps say that to our ancestors, it was easier to say "seven days" as a metaphor for a lengthy endeavour.

Answer 3

Judaism has nothing against an old earth. The beginning in Genesis is not an absolute beginning. It's just that particular beginning. There are many spiritual meanings in Genesis that have nothing to do with creation.

Gershon

Answer 4

Certainly species have evolved. But to deny creation as revealed in Genesis is to reject Scripture. If you reject one part, you must reject all.

Based on this premise, "Christian evolutionists" reject Biblical authority, and are therefore practicing a faith of their own making, and therefore usurping the Authority of God.

In accord with Scripture, Creation is the only alternative.

Mark

Answer 5

I consider myself a Christian who believes in evolution. Let me clarify a little: the reason I am ok with evolution, is that I believe that science has provided enough real evidence to prove that ALL LIFE as we know it has grown upon our planet through some process of progressively improving (i.e., as relates to physical adaptations, etc.) upon itself.
That concept fits quite well with my own personal understanding of my Creator and the Creation as we know it. Indeed, I often say that "I believe in evolution; after all, only God could developed such a successful, ultra-complex process in the first place!". In my understanding, evolution is part of God's overall Plan for the Creation. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, it seems that because the estimated Bible chronology from Adam only goes back several thousand years, anyone who believed in evolution had to disavow the Biblical time-line. But, as we know, the Bible is filled with analogies, allegories, parables, even poetry and song...all of which are open for a wide variety of interpretation. It is possible to understand the Biblical writings as a "collection of important writings which provide a brief summary of God's overall Plan unfolding, through the common thread of God's Love."
The Bible does not specifically identify evolution as a particular piece of God's Plan, but there are plenty of passages in the Bible that could be used to support valid connections between Creation and evolution. For example, it says in Genesis 1, verse 24: "And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.' And it was so." Could that not be understood to mean that God had already designed into the Plan that life would learn for itself how to manage and grow and progress in the environment provided? I see it that way. In other words, God has already "intelligently designed" the overall Plan...which none of us really know much about, except what we can read in the Bible or what we can observe in our natural surroundings (Creation?). We can learn from science just how complex and mysterious and unfathomable and often unexplainable Nature (Creation?) is; and, in my opinion, such complexity, beauty, and perfect harmony could not exist without true Love being behind it...and we all know that God is Love, so.....it is Love which has brought us to be, and it is Love which will keep us to be, though we might still have a ways to go before the human part of Creation reaches the perfection of God's Plan. In Isaiah 55:11, the Prophet reports that God revealed the following to him: "...so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it." To me, that means God's Plan for a perfect world will oneday come, but not until we all learn how to love each other unconditionally...just as God loves us.

Answer 6

I believe the bible, therefore my life is built on a rock. Nothing can move me. That sort of answers the question I think.

Answer 7

Will i believed in Selective Natural Selection, like insect evolve to counter the effects of pesticides. But it doest apply to all. Like Man come from Monkeys... More Scientist still disputted this theory.

It doest affects your christian faith to believed something, but it affects when you believe that there is no God and the process explain evolution from animal to human.

Answer 8

Macro Evolution is false and therefore not compatible with Christianity. (one of the 10 Commandments, do not give false testimony (Lie)

Evolution principles are contradictory to biblical principles also.
Macro Evolution is a theory that claims we were slime but after time became fish, monkeys, then men by chance.

Biblical principles show that God created us with a purpose and a plan that was orderly and distinct.
This is what we see today. We are distinct from all of creation not just on earth, but for all of the universe as well from that which we know. Despite all the movies, TV, and "UFO sightings" there is no definite proof there is life anywhere else in the entire universe as we know it.
We are God's special creation, created in His image.

Hope that helps.

Answer 9

OK, I will answer your Q like this.
True born again Christians who believe in the only everlasting gospel God gave us of the water and the Spirit (John 3:5), know the truth and this truth has set them free.

But there are others who have come another way, they are the ones who call themselves whatever, believe in all sorts of things because God does not know them, even if they say and do what they do.

Just a little facts about evolution: Did you know it was invented by an Englishman with the name of Darwin. He despised God and the Bible and was trying to disproof it by inventing this lie. He even married his own sister or first cousin. And unfortunately he died...funny that... and his theory went down in the grave with him.
So because people who are like him, despise God, dug up this theory from this stinking grave and are now trying to shove this down our throats....absolutely despicable don't you think?

Answer 10

Just get it straight.

There is only ONE GOD.

HE created every detail, if you just open your eyes.

Just read the answer above.