http://www.sfgate.com/news/texas/article...to-5199054

Back to the old textbook nonsense. I'm not religious, but did go to church as a kid and I never remember being told to choose between Christianity and evolution. And I'm sure that's still the case in many churches, but increasingly I hear people conflating believing in evolution and science with being "anti-Christian". Or people who I know are devout Christians being told they are not "real" Christians because they are not Creationists.

Even more absurd is when I hear people linking climate change denial with being a "good Christian"...

I am much like you in my history, and my greatest respect is for those who can combine faith and reason. I think the current divide had its roots long ago in attempts to divide church and state, such as the fight over prayer in schools and the use of school facilities for organizations with tenuous religious connections, as the Boy Scouts. These fights have engendered an us against them mentality. I'm good with teaching the theory of evolution in school and creationism in Sunday School and letting each individual make his own accomodations between the two.

Newton and Darwin are both interred in Westminster Abbey.

(09-18-2013 12:25 PM)JSA Wrote:  Newton and Darwin are both interred in Westminster Abbey.

As they should be!

(09-18-2013 10:38 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  When did being a Christian and believing in science become mutually exclusive?

Two things to keep in mind:
(1) They are NOT mutually exclusive for most -- only for a noxious few.
(2) It's a fairly new thing, in the grand scheme of things -- certainly postdates Thomas Aquinas, for example.

(09-18-2013 11:43 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I'm good with teaching the theory of evolution in school and creationism in Sunday School

If "teaching creationism" axiomatically means "teaching that evolution is a false theory"*, then I am not good with teaching it in Sunday School -- or with any Sunday School that claims to "teach" pseudo-science as science.

*To be clear, I'm not saying that YOU meant it this way, but I am concerned that others might mean it that way.

Setting aside evolution, the broader concepts to be reconciled are faith and reason. That dichotomy goes back hundreds, if not thousands of years.

From memory, Ayn Rand put it thus: "Faith is the negation of Reason". That may be the only point of agreement between her on one end of the spectrum and Martin Luther on the other...

Faith and rationality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_and_rationality Wrote:Fideism[edit source | editbeta] Martin Luther taught that faith and reason were antithetical, in the sense that questions of faith could not be illuminated by reason. He wrote, "All the articles of our Christian faith, which God has revealed to us in His Word, are in presence of reason sheerly impossible, absurd, and false."[12] and "[That] Reason in no way contributes to faith. [...] For reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things."[13] However, though seemingly contradictorily, he also wrote in the latter work that human reason "strives not against faith, when enlightened, but rather furthers and advances it",[14] bringing claims he was a fideist into dispute.

The Catholic Church, among others, has invaluable contributions to philosophy and reason. Yet, it seems to me inescapable that at some level, faith does require suspending reason.

To me, evolution is the surest proof possible that God exists. I really do not understand the controversy.

(09-18-2013 04:31 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me, evolution is the surest proof possible that God exists. I really do not understand the controversy.

I agree with you that "evolution is the surest proof possible that God exists". The question in my mind is what your definition of "evolution" is. If you, like Darwin, mean natural selection and small modifications over time resulting from survival of the fittest, I think even the most staunch creationists would generally agree with you. If you mean a complete change in species, I.e. chimp to human through the missing link, then the missing link is problematic from both a science and religious standpoint and bolsters the created as humans and then evolved into modern day humans viewpoint. I'm of the viewpoint that regardless of the mechanism by which we got to be modern day humans, it is so complex that there had to be a higher being, e.g. God, to orchestrate it.

(09-18-2013 04:31 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me, evolution is the surest proof possible that God exists. I really do not understand the controversy.

Because people can't embrace the grey area. It is either one or the other. It can't be both.

(09-19-2013 07:07 PM)RiceDoc Wrote:  I'm of the viewpoint that regardless of the mechanism by which we got to be modern day humans, it is so complex that there had to be a higher being, e.g. God, to orchestrate it.

My view as well. And with that view, I see no reason to get tangled up in the mechanics.

My now 84 year old mother told me never to join a church that required one to "check your brain at the door".

I am coming into this thread relatively late but find it to be an interesting conversation. I'll try not to mess it up. Like others I do accept Darwin's hypothesis that things can change by natural selection. I'll give the example of the Wishbone offense in college football. And the dearth of buggy whip makers these days. But I digress. It seems to me that one root of the controversy is found in the extrapolation of Darwin's hypothesis to the point of the "beginning" of all life as we know it. I don't think that Darwin ever meant to offer that as a part of his hypothesis. But another part of the controversy is rooted in the teaching of that extrapolation, or the perception of it as being taught to youngsters as "scientifically established fact", when the fact is that it is only a theory and the fact that it is a theory cannot be debated. As I learned in Albert Van Helton's History of Science class, one can only posit a hypothesis and offer it for others to consider and accept, modify, or reject. That subtle point is totally lost on most people who do not routinely operate in the scientific community. I have no issue with the "theory' of evolution being taught, as long as it is taught as being a "theory". And the same holds true for creationism. Even when it is I imagine that many youngsters who weren't really listening in their science class come home and report to mom and dad that the teacher said that life evolved from swamp mud. And thus we have a controversy.

But regarding the main topic, it really seems to me that a lot of folks who cannot "believe in science and be a Christian at the same time" probably are not very good at being either one separately in the first place. To me those two things are on skew planes. However I do personally believe that most if not all so-called scientific discoveries are in fact gifts of intellect and insight by God to the discoverer. He has simply opened their understanding to the natural world in like manner as He opened the understanding of Jesus disciples to the meaning of the scriptures, as it is related in the Bible.

Since this thread hit on evolution, and since I read this the other and am still thinking about it, there was a neat little article trying to make some sense of the truly incomprehensible timescale of the universe.

http://www.waitbutwhy.com/2013/08/puttin...ctive.html

It's fun comparing the length of recorded history to the amount of time we've had fire, and to the length of time humans have been "anatomically modern" (i.e. when homo sapiens emerged from homo erectus). And how those 200,000 years are just a tiny slice of the 6m years back to when humans and apes had a common ancestor.

And then how that 6m years is basically one pixel-width of the entire time of life on earth.

All theoretical, of course. But I think an appreciation of how a single human could never truly appreciate the timescales involved makes it easier to understand how all this complexity could've perhaps blossomed from such simplicity.

I see no necessity for anyone's hand in it, but that's a separate discussion.

(09-19-2013 07:07 PM)RiceDoc Wrote:  

(09-18-2013 04:31 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me, evolution is the surest proof possible that God exists. I really do not understand the controversy.

I agree with you that "evolution is the surest proof possible that God exists". The question in my mind is what your definition of "evolution" is. If you, like Darwin, mean natural selection and small modifications over time resulting from survival of the fittest, I think even the most staunch creationists would generally agree with you. If you mean a complete change in species, I.e. chimp to human through the missing link, then the missing link is problematic from both a science and religious standpoint and bolsters the created as humans and then evolved into modern day humans viewpoint. I'm of the viewpoint that regardless of the mechanism by which we got to be modern day humans, it is so complex that there had to be a higher being, e.g. God, to orchestrate it.

I've never been clear on what the missing link is. Is it a missing living species or a missing fossil? And how is it problematic from a science standpoint?

(09-19-2013 11:08 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(09-19-2013 07:07 PM)RiceDoc Wrote:  

(09-18-2013 04:31 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me, evolution is the surest proof possible that God exists. I really do not understand the controversy.

I agree with you that "evolution is the surest proof possible that God exists". The question in my mind is what your definition of "evolution" is. If you, like Darwin, mean natural selection and small modifications over time resulting from survival of the fittest, I think even the most staunch creationists would generally agree with you. If you mean a complete change in species, I.e. chimp to human through the missing link, then the missing link is problematic from both a science and religious standpoint and bolsters the created as humans and then evolved into modern day humans viewpoint. I'm of the viewpoint that regardless of the mechanism by which we got to be modern day humans, it is so complex that there had to be a higher being, e.g. God, to orchestrate it.

I've never been clear on what the missing link is. Is it a missing living species or a missing fossil? And how is it problematic from a science standpoint?

As I understand it, in simplified form. The fossil records go A-->B-->C--> (nothing here but hypothesized possible yet completely missing fossilized forms) -->D-->E-->F where A, B and C are apes or ape like and D,E and F are homo sapiens or very close relatives.

I like to think of it sort of as sabertooth tiger --> lion-->House cat --> (magic transformation with no evidence of it occurring)-->wolf -->coyote-->dog. The missing link is that species jump from feline to canine.

If someone thinks I'm wrong on the theory, please enlighten me. I never took a biology class in my life and am an amateur paleontologist at most!

Oh, it is problematic for science not only because the fossil records don't support the theory, but to take it a step further, the complete lack of any fossil evidence, particularly When Compared to The abundant evidence of either side of the gap, is strongly suggestive that there is nothing to fill the gap at all. That makes the nice hypothesis unproven with some evidence (the lack of evidence where abundant evidence should exist) that it may be wrong or at least incorrect in its currently espoused form.

Yeah, I have no biology background either, so I'm sure someone else on this board could contribute a lot more than I can (but that won't stop me from throwing some ideas around ).

Looking at a compilation of paleontological finds ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hum...on_fossils ) the general pattern seems indicative of species changing over time into other species.

For me, any gaps are most easily attributed to the dearth of fossil evidence overall. The likelihood of a knowledgeable human stumbling upon preserved remains from millions years ago seems on par with that of a miracle.

Actually, I think the missing link skepticism could be turned around. That is, it seems for non-evolutionists who believe that species are static that there is a "missing human" problem even greater than the "missing link" problem for evolutionists. We have a smattering of extremely old fossils that appear to be from our non-human ancestors (or closely related species), but then where are the extremely old fossils of current-form humans? To my knowledge, there are none.


Also, I believe there's one conceptual point you have wrong in the rendiering that "The fossil records go A-->B-->C--> (nothing here but hypothesized possible yet completely missing fossilized forms) -->D-->E-->F where A, B and C are apes or ape like and D,E and F are homo sapiens or very close relatives."
I think you're identifying C as where ape evolution split from human evolution, meaning A, B, and C are common ancestors of both modern apes and modern humans and everything after C is an ancestor of modern humans only.

If I have that right, then the clarification I'd like to make is that A, B, and C are not "apes" as you said, just a common ancestor of both apes and humans. They are no more (modern) apes than they are (modern) humans.

Also, there's a minor language thing here, completely irrelevant to the discussion but it could cause confusion. It's my understanding that "ape" is currently a common term for the family Hominidae. Hominidae includes the genuses Pongo (orangutans), Gorilla (gorillas), Pan (chimps and bonobos), and Homo (humans). Everywhere above I've treated apes as something distinct from humans, but that's not correct as humans are apes-- one species of ape. It would be more correct, but much harder to write, if everywhere above I had replaced "ape" with "separately, orangutans, gorillas, and chimps/bonobos".

(09-18-2013 04:31 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me, evolution is the surest proof possible that God exists. I really do not understand the controversy.

I do not understand the controversy either. I consider what is in Genesis to be akin to a parable. The Bible is full of parables, so why is Genesis a special case?

Also, I imagine most religions have a creation story. Does this level of controversy exist with respect to non-Christian religions?

I wonder if this or evolution is taught in Navajo schools.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Din%C3%A9_Bahane%CA%BC