Evolution Or God... How were we created?

This topic should be under Life Talk -> Religion and Philosophy where you will find the topic "Evolution or Creationism or niether.

They believe that all living things have common ancestors but that humans have comon ancestors with primates in a more recent past than with other living creatures.

I copy this from my last post in the topic mentioned above.

So if you follow up from this point of view, we must ask what it truly means to be human. If all it takes is our bodies and we can behave as we please, then I think we are a bunch of apes and nothing more. But if there is something that God is trying to teach us and our thoughts, feelings and behavior also defines our humanity, then maybe we are a creation of God after all.


Generally it is a choice between faith and reason. Evolution make some effort to appeal to reason. So if reason is what you are looking for you are not honestly going to find it in creationism. However the identification of human beings with evolving animals does a great deal of damage to the Christian world view and its faith. It is a matter of choosing which of these is worth more to you. For me faith wins hands down, and yet I stubbornly refuse to let go of reason.

Me too, but I am also a scientist and a philospher. I want my cake and I want to eat it too.

I just wanted you to know that even though I am a Christian, I agree with you 100%. The reason is probably because I am also a scientist. Creationism and intellegent design are not science, they are representative of a growing number of groups who try to clothe their religous or philosophical beliefs in the terminology and appearance of science. They have done this largely because of atheists or anti-theists who have clothed their religious or philosophical beliefs in science for nearly a century. This practice went unchallenged for too long, but more recent results in science and logic have invalidated this (Quantum mechanics and the unprovability of the consistency of mathematics by Kurt Godel). Science is now neutral on the issue as it should be. However, the damage is already done and true science has lost a great deal of credibility among the large portions of the public. This is why we see this rising pseudo-science, where science has been reduced to rhetoric.

Scientist must and do guard the process of scientific discovery just as jealously as the Christians guard the life transforming message of Christianity. It is my dearest hope to heal the widening breach between them, which this issue of evolution versus creationism has become. The only way I can see this happening is for both to give up a little of their misconceptions. Evolution cannot be a deterministic, automatic or random process because it involves living things, which make choices creatively with both intention and purpose, with the input of teachers and caregivers. Creation cannot be design and manufacture when it involves living things, which learn things for themselves and determine what they will become, every step of the way, by means of their own choices.

God created the world and everthing in it, but not as a watchmaker. How could anyone in their right mind compare our world to a smoothly running clockworks. God created created the world as the shepherd raises his sheep. The idiot sheep run astray constantly and some are injured despite the best the shepherd can do.

Evolution in its simplest terms is just the plain fact that living things learn and make choices as whole population (genetic pool) as well as individually. It is driven by genetic variation which derives from the creative process inherent in all living things, both individually and as groups.

The conflict between creation and evolution derives entirely from an inadequate understanding of the nature of living things. And this conflict will eventually fade as we learn more an more about ourselves.

There are plenty of scientists who know a great deal more science than you do, yet they still believe in God. Now, this may be because the more you know of science the more you realize how little we know after all, but I don't think so. I think that no matter how much we learn the question of the existence of God will remain something that we will simply choose to believe or not. However, I think the only people who think that God is as you describe are atheists, for they have simply created this image for the purpose of ridicule. Tradition has it that God is an infinite being and therefore has no need of a creator. Now if you are thinking that as an explanation for the existence of the universe, this is very unsatisfying, then I agree with you. As an explanation for things God does not do a good job at all. But that is not the true role of God in the live of those who believe in him.



Ah but matter is created all the time and even energy is not conserved absolutely. All these laws of physics have their exceptions. The current theory of the big bang put forward by the physics community is that this event created all of matter, space and time. Some even think that many of the physical laws of our universe were created at the same time as the result of a symmetry breaking phenomena.

Of what science do you speak? The physical sciences are all about the mathematical relationship between measurable quantities. And the other sciences have yet to prove much of anything at all. For the most part they simply observe and record the results.

Hmmm.... This is sure getting way off topic. But this topic of the imortality of the soul is sure interesting to me. I thought I had found a big flaw in fundamentalist thinking about there being no immortal soul, when I realized that those who are not saved would have to be resurrected in order to be sent to hell. So I asked my pastor (Calvary Chapel) about this and he gave me the chapter and verse which confirms that yes people will indeed be resurrected in order to be sent to hell.

Golly, I guess I will never be a fundamentalist no matter how hard I try. The complete lack of logic in this position baffles me. I can understand the extreme caution that lies behind this attitude that, if it isn't in the bible then it isn't true, and I can certainly appreciate the fear of following the doctrines of men. But I could never believe that the Bible hold all the truth there is. I certainly do not think that it gives a detailed description of the creation of the world or even comes close to explaining how God created the world. I tend toward thinking that this issue of the immortal soul is another area where the Bible is incomplete.

2nd Corintians 15 describes the the Spiritual body which certainly sounds like an immortal soul to me, although I suppose fundamentalists would say that this is the resurrected body. But I think their conclusion is driven by an exessive obsession with making everything in the Bible perfectly consistent. The perfect simplicity of the idea of the immortal soul or Spiritual body which is subject to certain natural laws that govern its existence, nature and fate, adds a tremendous amount of rationality to the Christian world view. I don't think it an issue worth doctrinal conflict and division but in the privacy of my own mind, I at least require this idea to keep hold of my own reason.

If you will allow me to plunge into the world of my own opinion, I think that all living things have an immortal spiritual aspect that derives from the process of life itself, and is built stone by stone from the choices each living thing makes as a part of this process. But the question of whether this immortal spirit or soul exists and whether it is alive are two different things. Life for the soul must assuredly come from God alone, and thus a separation from God is spiritual death which is another name for hell. I find this much more rational than the idea of resurrecting people for the sole purpose of eternal suffering. I also fail to see any reasonable objection to my point of view other that the fact that it cannot be found in the Bible. Do you?

Good thought depending on what you think that means. The kind of evolution of the individual described by Darwin lead to a socially destructive philosophy known as social darwinism. I also think it played a crucial role in the philosophy of nazi germany. The problem is that Darwin's theory is incomplete.

This does not sound like any kind of evolution at all. It sounds like the inheritance of aquired characteristics supplanted by Darwin. But on the other had there must be something right in what you are saying. Intuition tells us so.

Darwin's theory of the evolution of the individual doesn't apply to humanity anymore. We are clearly in the next stage of evolution, which is the evolution of the community, which changes all the rules. We embarked on this stage of evolution once we began to protect the weaker members of society and made possible ways of life freed from the immediate concerns of individual survival. How does a computer programmer compete for food. He doesn't, not as an individual. Instead there is a mutually benifical dynamic between him and those who do aquire food. Learning and human technology are all part of this new stage of evolution of the community. Competition has proven to be an effective economic dynamic for the human community but its proof is not Darwinism but in the improvement of cooperative acheivements of the human community.

Logan, first I would like to say that I am responding to your post because I found it interesting not because I wish to refute everything you say. I have had so many people automatically assume this and obvious confusion results because they cannot see the validity of the refutations which I am not making.

Being both christian and a physics teacher I cannot agree more with what you are saying here in the main, but I would like object to final sentiment. Standing in between science and religion and absorbing the confusion, trying to make sense of it, is not a comfortable place to be. There are many people, even the majority who have little reason to even try. Therefore I object to calling people fanatics or cultists (even though many of these would wear the badge proudly), because I think they are far more ordinary than these labels imply. I am often surprised at how little of what science is saying is understood by the majority of people, including those who adopt it (science) as a sort of life philosophy or religion. Because of this, I think it has become a pretty common attitude to give up on science. People buy in Kuhn's nonsense about scientific revolutions and think that the discoveries of science will eventually be overturned, and so they believe what they want to believe. As strange as it may sound, I think that Star Trek has a greater following than science these days. People find it easier to believe in a well told story. For lets face it, the stuff of todays physics has gone so far out of the realm of common sense that it is far stranger than science fiction.

Indoctrination really has very little to do with it. In our society people make their own choices about what to believe and they change their minds all the time. What you are really saying here is that you think the rejection of evolution is unreasonable and therefore anyone who does this must be crazy or deluded. You are wrong. People can and do believe in just about anything for reasons too numerous to count. Reason is not a one way street, it is more like an infinity of parallel worlds because it must begin with assumptions, postulates, or first principles.

This is too simple a picture. Originally science, philosphy, religion, art and entertainment were all one with no divisions between, it was the expression of the pure and innocent wonder, curiosity and creativity of mankind. You think like a modern man when you separate these elements. Their stories were not only to explain like a science, but to give them meaning like a philosophy, to inspire them like a religion, to express beauty like an art, and engage their heart, humor and passion as our numberous forms of entertainment does today. So we have become more sophisticated today with all these specialize activities to excel in specialized tasks. But confusion and some siliness results when we compare these different activities based on goals of one of them. Science is in the business of explaining things rationally and of course religion cannot compete on that basis because that is not its primary function in life of the believer. When we compare these in this foolish manner and force people to choose, I think were are in danger of becoming fragments of a whole.

Religion has only been used as a convenient excuse for war and abuse when that seemed possible, but it has more often been simply ignored because it gets in the way. I mean get serious, where exactly was religion in the two world wars? And what about the atrocities committed by the communists in their cultural revolutions in the name of their anti-religious sentiments. Do you really think the conflict in Palestine is about religion? The muslims have always been 1000% more tolerant and sympathetic with the Jews than Christians have, until we decided that they had to give up their land for them. Ok, so what about the crusades? Religion was a convenient excuse for these barbaric conquerers of the Roman empire to continue their pilliage south, but the victims were often other christians. So people like to parrot this nonsense about religion being the cause of war, but I think it is time for people to grown up.

Well, clearly I am saying that it really must be both, but we really don't want to turn the clock back and mix up science and religion back together again. In science we have learned that sometime apparently contradictory explaination are required for a real understanding of things (the photon is both a wave and a particle). But, on the other hand, not everyone can do it, so we need tolerance and even appreciation for people who are different.

Or a giant living computer created by mice to compute the ultimate question?


Yes this sort of pseudo-science is rampant today. We definite want to keep religion out of science. All in all, I think we see eye to eye. We definite need to find some way of healing this adversarial gap between science and religion. We need a greater acceptance of the true complexity of human life and take a step toward becoming more than just fragments.

I on the other hand, do not much care for debate, I prefer discussion, which places a higher priority on respecting different points of view. I was in my high school debate class/club and I think the experience was very valuable in developing my public speaking ability. But debate is too much about arguing for argument's sake, picking at words, intentionally misunderstanding and distorting the other persons point of view, and other meaningless tactics of rhetoric. I find all this a waste of time and tiresome.

Oh but I never even implied anything different. But as much as people may try to indoctrinate, after a certain age it doesn't stick. After that it becomes a matter of choice. The active Christians are all converts.

Oh people certainly like to repeat this. But I challenge this. Prove it.

Six million Jews were killed because of their religion but not in name of any religion. More than twice that number were killed by the communists, and if you call what they had a religion then atheism is the worst religion of them all. Then there is the impressive slaughter by Ghingus Khan. Two world wars. The civil war. How does the example of the crusades and a few wars in Europe during the reformation, with religion as the thinnest excuse, justify this claim of yours?

In fact most of the time when it was about religion, the result was conversion by force rather than slaughter. It was often only afterwards that simple greed brought about the slaughter or enslavement of those which religion had previously converted.

Well the original topic was "Evolution or God: How were we created"
But a photon, my pleasure..
There is no such thing as a photon at rest. So a photon is always a wave which often interacts as though it were a particle. Or if you like M theory (modern string theory) it is a vibrational mode of ten dimensional space-time, which like all forms of matter and energy can only interact in discrete units called quanta.

No more than Catholicicsm is the same as Christianity and yet Christians get blamed for everything the Catholics did. So likewise since the communists are a member of the group atheism and if atheism can be considered a religion then atheism is the worst religion of them all.

Couldn't agree with you more. The real culprit is human nature at its worst. And war and murder happen in spite of religion not because of it. Although humans will use any excuse they can find for what they do. But I think that history proves that religion is the hardest and rarest excuse of them all.

I am not opposed in principle to the teaching of religion in school. It is an important part of human life and I am all in favor of children being more informed so that they can make their own decisions regarding it. But obviously this will never happen in the public schools, because there are far too many fanatical opinions in regards to religion and until different churches and religion can at least recognize the value of each other, then there obviously can be no official place for it in the public schools. Otherwise it is inevitable that this will just be used by the dominant religion in the area to supress religious freedom by putting pressure on students in favor of their religion.

As a direct consequence "Creation science" or "Intellegent design" has no place in the schools because it is religion and not science. I don't think science is everything, in fact, science looks at the world in a very restricted fashion, and people who try to make it the answer to everything are making a religion out of science, and when they do that they aren't doing science any more than the Creation scientists are doing science. Both are rhetoric, and confusing rhetoric with science is something to which I am very opposed.

I am not saying that none of the research involved is valid, although its use in the rhetoric of "Creation science" is not making any of this easy to recognize as such. But Christian churches and organizations have to butt out of science and to drop the pretense that their conclusions are in anyway scientific. That won't get them their ridiculous political agenda which amounts to intolerance of science.

But truth be told I think this all derives from Christian laziness and complacency. They want to railroad their children into a Christian way of life rather than make the effort required to make their case with their children in a free thinking environment. Frankly, I think that if they cannot make the case of their Christian way of life to their children, it is because their life is only superficially Christian anyway. A superficially Christian life like this is a lie and a deceit and the children won't won't buy it because they are too close the parents to be fooled.

The reaction of fundamentalist christians against science is a tragedy. And it is a reflection of the tendency of Western society (espcially the U.S.) to seek simple-minded solutions to everything. The result is that our society swings to one extreme and then another, when these simple-minded solutions fail. However, the current dangerous and frightening swing to the right that we are currently suffering (in the US) is the natural consequence of the simple-minded solution of liberals to trash and dismiss every tradition of our past without any attempt at compromise with a large portion of our population. If we do not learn again to compromise as we once were able in the past then the US will fall as these swings to extremes eventually tear the democracy (which is far more fragile than most imagine) apart. No one thought that a maniac like Hitler could gain power in Germany, but he did in just the kind of right wing swing that the US is now experiencing.

Man do I agree with you. I am a born again Christian but this is another issue on which I have a parting of ways with my bretheren. I believe that learning to think for oneself and make well balance decisions for your own life is a much more important thing to teach your children than trying to insure that your children make the "right" choice. It is why the fact that me and my wife belong to different religions does not bother me, or even the fact that my wife takes the children to her church. I think a wide exposure to different points of view can only help my sons make better and more informed choices of their own.