Creation vs Evolution - Curious

[Diana B]

So I heard some interesting statistics over the weekend, so I'm curious. I don't want to start a debate on what is right, I just want to see if I can get similar stats. :)

 

So, the question is: If you are a Christian, do you believe in 7-day creation as it is told in Genesis? Or do you believe in a non-7 day / half evolution creation? Or maybe you believe full blown in evolution?

 

And if you are not a Christian, do you believe in a different creation story or evolution?

[Mynyel]

I believe in creation...but not a 7 day creation.

 

I believe God has his own timetable :)

[Diana B]

I hadn't thought about just an extended creation period... I guess in my mind I put that with creation/evolution... Hmm... can I edit a poll after I made it? :) And please don't take issue with any of my wording! Promise ~ not interested in a debate. :)

[Matryoshka]

Well, evolution tells us exactly nothing about how the earth/universe came into existence. It's not meant to. It only tells us how life, once it already existed, changes over time. I've never understood why they're supposed to be in conflict.

 

Honestly, I've always thought that if anything the Big Bang Theory (which has nothing at all to do with the theory of evolution, but has more to do with creation, though it still has nothing to say about where the stuff that banged came from) makes creation by God more plausible, not less. Way more efficient to have everything created at one time and place and expand/evolve from there than to create every star, planet, and blade of grass separately...

 

I'm not an atheist, but I'm obviously not a Biblical literalist either. ;)

[Geek]

Overwhelming evidence supports evolution. And matroyshka is right: evolution does not speak to life's origins. That would be

. Abiogenesis explains the origin of life, and evolution explains how life changes once it already exists.

 

ETA I am an ex-Christian.

Edited June 29, 2010 by Geek

[Melissa in Australia]

I voted other. I am christian, I believe in creation, not evolution, but I don't necessarily believe in 7 day . I believe that a 'day' is just a period of time.

[Amy in TX]

Well, evolution tells us exactly nothing about how the earth/universe came into existence. It's not meant to. It only tells us how life, once it already existed, changes over time. I've never understood why they're supposed to be in conflict.

 

Honestly, I've always thought that if anything the Big Bang Theory (which has nothing at all to do with the theory of evolution, but has more to do with creation, though it still has nothing to say about where the stuff that banged came from) makes creation by God more plausible, not less. Way more efficient to have everything created at one time and place and expand/evolve from there than to create every star, planet, and blade of grass separately...

 

 

I was raised a Catholic, am now a Muslim, and this is exactly what I have always (and still do) believe.

:)

[kalanamak]

Well, believe is a strong word. How about "suspect plausibility"?

 

I live and breathe this:

 

The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.

 

-B. Russell

[Cheryl in NM]

I am a Christian and I believe in the 7 day creation story as told in Genesis, but I selected other because I believe there is a difference in time as we humans understand it and how God lives it. I don't believe He created the universe in 7 24 hour days. Of course, it's not a hill I'm willing to die on. My belief is based on my very limited understanding of Godly things. I don't think God will hold it against me if I am wrong because it's all I'm capable of.

[BikeBookBread]

I am a Christian and I believe in the 7 day creation story as told in Genesis, but I selected other because I believe there is a difference in time as we humans understand it and how God lives it. I don't believe He created the universe in 7 24 hour days. Of course, it's not a hill I'm willing to die on. My belief is based on my very limited understanding of Godly things. I don't think God will hold it against me if I am wrong because it's all I'm capable of.

 

:iagree: So I voted "Other"

[dangermom]

I believe that God created the universe and life, and that evolution is a natural process that is how He accomplishes some of His purposes. I have no quarrel with evolution, I find it fascinating (though it is not something I have faith in, since it's not a religious tenet; I accept that the evidence for it is good). I believe that the Bible account is not meant to be an exact report of the precise methodology involved in the creation of the earth, but a poetic account that tells us why it was created and why we are here--which is much more important. I believe that Adam and Eve were real people who made an important choice, and a necessary one, and there is no reason to castigate them for it.

 

I didn't choose an option, wasn't sure what you meant by all of them.

[sbgrace]

I selected other because I firmly believe in creation but I'm not boxing God into a "human mind" literal seven 24 hour days interpretation of Genesis. I'm also not going to presumptively box God into or out of certain methods used for creation but, again, I felt none of your options really fit me.

[edithcrawley]

I'm a Christian who voted other. I believe that the Big Bang happened as science says it does, and all life came out of that and eventually evolved into what we have today-but I believe that God made the Big Bang happen and knew exactly how things would progress. I believe that the creation story in Genesis is a figurative story, written how it was because at the time that the Bible was written, humans could not understand the science behind how the world came to be.

[Wayfaring Stranger]

I chose the second radio button but it does not quite capture it for me. I believe God created everything and I read Genesis chapter one literally. God in the trinity (Father, Spirit and Word) is the creator of light and darkness, therefore light and darkness are not gods (ying and yang are not gods). God created the waters and the earth so the waters and the earth are not gods. God created the sun, the moon and the stars and the sun and moon and stars are not to be worshiped. An ancient Egyptian who worshiped Ra, the sun god, would know the meaning of the creation story was to discredit all the ancient myths. Genesis is not a myth, it is the anti-myth, but it is not science either. It is history but not in the modern sense. The reality of it is far beyond us to understand, but this story tells us what we can know. God (in the trinity) is literally the creator of everything and all the myths of other created gods are literally false.

 

As for evolution... God is not trying to trick us. Let the evidence lead where it will. I have no problem with evolution. The Church has really taken some bad positions on science in the past. (The Church has also really aided the advance of science as well). The Bible does not have to be science or a myth. It is an anti-myth, non-scientific, ancient history of the salvation of the world.

Edited June 29, 2010 by Father of Pearl

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

Well, believe is a strong word. How about "suspect plausibility"?

 

I live and breathe this:

 

The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.

 

-B. Russell

 

Interesting. :D

 

I am a non-expert and an ordinary (wo)man. It took me a long time and a lot of study to come to the conclusion that I don't want to be the person that is certain of the answer to this question. Now I'm finding it difficult to explain that to my children, who think there must be a right answer to everything.

 

However, I am reasonably certain that God is not a deciever, not in word or in deed. So, what we can see and test of the physical world, using the laws that he created, must somehow match up with what has been revealed, but not necessarily in the way that we think it does. We who are confined to space and time cannot possibly fathom the workings of one who is not.

[Mrs Mungo]

I do not believe that God created the world in 7 (or six, if you're sharp-shooting ;) ) days made up of 24 hours each. I also do not believe that everything from tulips to blue whales came from a single-celled organism through a series of happy accidents. I voted for the second option.

Edited June 29, 2010 by Mrs Mungo

[silliness7]

I voted other...

Christian here but 6-day creation :001_smile:

 

ETA: I used to think that it was quite possible for God to use evolution as His means of creation. And perhaps a day was not a literal 24-hour period. It was then pointed out to me that evolution presupposes death. The Bible says that death entered the world as a result of Adam and Eve's sin. Having death enter the world before that turns the entire Bible into a lie so I'm a literal creationist.

Edited June 29, 2010 by silliness7

[ereks mom]

Hoo boy.

 

Some will take issue with the wording of your question.

 

It's possible to believe in a "7-day creation as it is told in Genesis" but argue that "day" may or may not be defined as 24 hours.

 

I picked the first option, but I'm not certain that a "day" means "24 hours".

[Hannah C.]

I picked the second option (Christian believing in combination of creation and evolution), but I'm not entirely happy with it. :P

 

I believe God created everything. I have no idea how He did it, but I know He did it. I believe that Adam and Eve were real people. I do not believe that every living being in the world came from one organism. In other words, I do think microevolution occurs, but am unconvinced as to macroevolution.

 

Most of all, I don't think we should be arguing with each other and debating non-stop over this..especially Christians vs Christians. The important thing, to me, is that God did create the universe etc. He could have done it any number of ways, including some no one's thought of I'm sure, and none of us were there. So..yeah.

[Food4Thought]

Interesting. :D

 

I am a non-expert and an ordinary (wo)man. It took me a long time and a lot of study to come to the conclusion that I don't want to be the person that is certain of the answer to this question. Now I'm finding it difficult to explain that to my children, who think there must be a right answer to everything.

 

However, I am reasonably certain that God is not a deciever, not in word or in deed. So, what we can see and test of the physical world, using the laws that he created, must somehow match up with what has been revealed, but not necessarily in the way that we think it does. We who are confined to space and time cannot possibly fathom the workings of one who is not.

 

I'm with you and Kalanamak on this one. DH is a literal 7-day Young Earth Creationist. We go head-to-head sometimes on why I won't tell the kids one way or another. I give them the "some people believe..." answer, though I do believe deeply in God. I just don't believe our human minds can possibly fathom how it happened or what has happened since.

 

My son is coming to understand that some questions may not have easily accessible answers, and that we don't judge people who may come to other conclusions based on the evidence. This goes for things like dinosaurs (because who knows what they looked like? I mean, really?) and issues of church doctrine too - things like predestination/free-will and pre-trib/post-trib. I choose not to live or die by these things.

[Peela]

Well, I am all over the place with this so I chose "other".

 

It seems to me that some sort of Divine Intelligence, which may be called God, created not just this planet but all of creation. We are not separate from that creation/intelligence but an innate part of it- nothing is separate from it, it is not possible for anything to be separate from it, from God- but we humans make a good job of pretending we are.

 

It seems to me that some sort of evolutionary process is naturally built into creation. It seems to me that the Biblical 7 days of creation may be metaphorical and not necessarily opposing to the concept of evolution, if taken on a huge time scale barely conceivable to us and not taken so literally.

 

However, I do know very clearly that I don't know and can't possibly know, and i dont believe anyone else can possible "know", what the truth is as regards how it all started. We can guess. We can make educated guesses even. However we are too much a small part of the whole of existence and it is not our privilege to know.

I am at peace with that not knowing and am not going to create artificial beliefs to feel secure within the huge amount we simply don't know.

 

I teach my kids evolution because it makes sense and the evidence seems to point that way. It doesnt mean we claim to understand or know it all, or that if more evidence comes along to dispute all or parts of evolutionary theory, we won't be open to it. Its not a religious belief for us- we dont "believe" in evolution like Christians "believe" that Jesus came to save them. So to most evolutionists, the issue is not on the same platform as it is to Creationists.

[Joker]

I hate when these questions come up. I don't know why it has to be creation vs evolution. I don't have all the answers and I don't think I should. I also don't think it matters in the end. I believe in God and that's enough for me.

[iona]

I'm not sure exactly where I fall pollwise. I believe God created the world and I believe the bible to be true. I think it is insufficient if you ask it the wrong questions (like a magic 8 ball or something) I believe the gospel is central and all of scripture is leading up to or flowing out of Christ......that the bible is the account of God saving His people. It is "useful" in respect to other things (family, life, work), but those aren't the primary reason for it. imho:)

[dansamy]

I'm a Christian. I believe in Creation. I believe that God revealed the story of creation to man. However, I believe that man may not have been able to fully and accurately articulate all that was revealed to him. Therefore, a creation day may not be a literal 24-hour span of time. (Especially considering the fact that a 24-hour day did not exist prior to the creation of both the sun and the earth.)

 

Humans are finite and fragile. We lack the frame of reference with which to understand and comprehend truly and fully the infinite, omnipotent and omnipresent God. I don't think God holds that against us at all.

Edited June 29, 2010 by dansamy

[Crimson Wife]

I believe that God created the universe and everything in it. As I believe God is omnipotent, I'm open to the possibility that God created an "old Earth" with fossils already in it and light from distant stars only appearing to be millions of years old. A creation in media res as it were. However, I lean towards the belief that the 6 days of Creation discussed in Scripture represents some time period other than 144 modern hours. My denomination believes the Bible is true & infallible, but can be interpreted in an allegorical sense rather than a literal one.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I believe that God created the universe and everything in it. As I believe God is omnipotent, I'm open to the possibility that God created an "old Earth" with fossils already in it and light from distant stars only appearing to be millions of years old. A creation in media res as it were. .

 

I would find it very difficult to accept this. Could God do it? Sure. But would he? Would he deliberately lead us to believe something that is not true?

[laundrycrisis]

I'm not a Christian, or an atheist....I am just here, and filled with awe and wonder. The more I learn from science, the more wonderful it all is.

 

"This world falls on me, with hopes of immortality

 

Everywhere I turn, all this beauty just keeps shaking me"

[asta]

Well, I am all over the place with this so I chose "other".

 

It seems to me that some sort of Divine Intelligence, which may be called God, created not just this planet but all of creation. We are not separate from that creation/intelligence but an innate part of it- nothing is separate from it, it is not possible for anything to be separate from it, from God- but we humans make a good job of pretending we are.

 

It seems to me that some sort of evolutionary process is naturally built into creation. It seems to me that the Biblical 7 days of creation may be metaphorical and not necessarily opposing to the concept of evolution, if taken on a huge time scale barely conceivable to us and not taken so literally.

 

However, I do know very clearly that I don't know and can't possibly know, and i dont believe anyone else can possible "know", what the truth is as regards how it all started. We can guess. We can make educated guesses even. However we are too much a small part of the whole of existence and it is not our privilege to know.

I am at peace with that not knowing and am not going to create artificial beliefs to feel secure within the huge amount we simply don't know.

 

I teach my kids evolution because it makes sense and the evidence seems to point that way. It doesnt mean we claim to understand or know it all, or that if more evidence comes along to dispute all or parts of evolutionary theory, we won't be open to it. Its not a religious belief for us- we dont "believe" in evolution like Christians "believe" that Jesus came to save them. So to most evolutionists, the issue is not on the same platform as it is to Creationists.

 

:iagree:

 

I think the Old Testament is a parable. And that, for some odd reason, "modern" man confuses it with a play by play (like baseball).

 

 

asta

[Hunter's Moon]

I haven't read the other posts, but am I the only person who doesn't understand the Bible's timing?

 

I was always taught that God's time is nothing like ours. So, in the Bible when it says he created the world in 7 days, it is on our time, or His?

 

I believe it was on His time, so I chose the option: I am a Christian but believe in Creation and Evolution.

 

:)

 

ETA: Reading some other posts, I see that a lot of other posters mentioned 'His time' and 'our time'. (I really need to start reading posts before I post myself)

Edited June 29, 2010 by BeatleMania

[joannqn]

I'm a Christian. I believe that God created the universe. I believe all theories to the origin of the universe are just that...theories. To me, it doesn't matter how, when, how long, etc. The only thing that matters is that God did it.

[Rosie_0801]

Well, evolution tells us exactly nothing about how the earth/universe came into existence.

 

:iagree: But that's what I go with for want of a more appealing story. When it comes down to it, I could care less how the universe began. I'd rather pursue solvable mysteries, and there are enough of them to keep me occupied for a lifetime.

 

Rosie

[Devotional Soul]

I believe in the Vedic Creation story, which explains in great detail how God created our universe from His eternal abode beyond. Some parts are very similar to the Biblical Creation story, and some parts are similar to the big bang theory (plus God) and evolutionism. I'll share a summary for anyone interested, since I know it is not so well known.

 

There are very mathematical calculations that say our universe was created 155.521960852 trillion years ago and was renovated with partial destruction/creation by flood 2 billion years ago. We are presently starting the second half of the life of our universe, which will end and return to the body of the Lord in another 155 trillion years.

 

For 4.32 billion year cycles, life thrives. During this time, 14 progenitors will come and go, each for 305.72 million years. There is a partial destruction and creation between each progenitor. The last time this happened was 120.532 million years ago. (This is when the flood with Matsya happened, which is very similar to the Biblical story of Noah's flood...both say that eight saintly people survived in a boat with the animals).

 

Within these huge cycles for us, there are smaller ones, too. We are in Kali Yuga, the age of deterioration/corruption/quarrel which began 5,000 years ago. All living things are evolving to be smaller and smaller. People's memories became shorter, so scripture that was once known and shared orally since the beginning of creation began being written down. This is when 'ancient history' begins, but is not ancient at all according the Vedic scriptures. (The Ramayana with the army of monkey people was 2 million years ago, when scientists say homo erectus evolved). Before Kali Yuga, everyone was born knowing Sanskrit, just like how the Bible says everyone spoke one language before the Tower of Babel.

 

Life spans become shorter with each cycle. The maximum life span in the previous age (Dvapara Yuga) was 1,000 years and the maximum life span for this age is 100 years and will eventually evolve to be a maximum of 50 years. The Bible says that Noah lived to be 950 and Abraham lived to 175 (which means that Abraham came a little before Kali Yuga began). Both the Bible and Srimad Bhagavatam prophesize the return of the Lord on a white horse, using a sword to destroy demoniac forces.

 

Vedic cosmology also says that one day for the demigods/angels is 1,000 earth years. One day for the creator is 4.32 billion earth years. Time exists only within material universes. They emanate from God like seeds with all of the necessary components of material life contained within to grow and evolve until it dies.

 

I'm not making any of this up. This is all based on my reading of the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Holy Bible, both which have inspired me to go beyond all of this temporary world and aspire for eternal love of God by His causeless mercy.

Edited June 29, 2010 by Devotional Soul

[Rosie_0801]

Thanks for that, Christina. That was new to me.

 

:)

Rosie

[Pamela H in Texas]

I believe in creation, but not 7 day creationism or evolution. I believe God *could* have done it in 7 literal days and I believe he *could* have used evolution to do it. He's almighty God and *could* have done anything anyway he wanted. However, scripture and science shows that he *didn't* use either. The Bible and SCIENCE are correct. Man's traditions and wild conclusions are false.

Edited June 29, 2010 by 2J5M9K

[ChristusG]

I believe in Creation by God....and I don't think it matters whether a day is 24 hours or longer. It's still called a "day" in the Bible. So therefore, wouldn't the OP have worded it correctly?

[Catherine]

Stars and planets formed as the universe expanded and cooled. Elements other that hydrogen and helium form as stars cool and begin to burn out. Life can only exist in the universe where there are centers of energy: stars, with heat and light.

[Geek]

I teach my kids evolution because it makes sense and the evidence seems to point that way. It doesnt mean we claim to understand or know it all, or that if more evidence comes along to dispute all or parts of evolutionary theory, we won't be open to it. Its not a religious belief for us- we dont "believe" in evolution like Christians "believe" that Jesus came to save them. So to most evolutionists, the issue is not on the same platform as it is to Creationists.

This is a key distinction and I wanted to thank you wholeheartedly for pointing this out. One major difference between evolution and creationism is one is capable of being disproved while the other is not.

 

And before you jump to any conclusions about which is which, please hear me out. :)

 

Evolution, being scientific, is by definition capable of being disproved. All it would take is for *one* Jurassic fossil to be found in the Cretaceous rock layer, for example. But strict creationism? Its adherents aren't open to it being disproved because it is religious, which is by definition, ultimately founded upon faith.

 

Evolutionists are quite open to being shown they are wrong, and creationists are not. This is not a matter of opinion: it's a matter of definitions.

 

There are very mathematical calculations that say our universe was created 155.521960852 trillion years ago and was renovated with partial destruction/creation by flood 2 billion years ago.

The universe was flooded? Huh.

 

According to modern science's very mathematical calculations--based upon photos taken by the Hubble telescope, our understanding of astronomy including things like the speed of light and red shift--the universe is 13.7 billion years old, give or take 0.7.

 

I'm not making any of this up. This is all based on my reading of the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Holy Bible, both which have inspired me to go beyond all of this temporary world and aspire for eternal love of God by His causeless mercy.

I believe you are not making any of this up. But calculations founded upon writings so ancient that its writers would have found the wheelbarrow "emergent technology"--not based upon modern technological data and modern mathematics--are suspect for a whole host of reasons.

[Hedgehogs4]

i believe in 7 days as told in genesis, because it says "there was morning and there was evening, the first day." and it also does not give the order of creation the same way that evolution would--stars and suns first. rather, it describes the firmament, the creation of light, but not heavenly bodies, etc.

 

i believe we have to take God at his Word. if i can't believe Genesis, can i believe that the red sea was parted? can i believe that the walls of jericho fell flat with a shout? can i believe that a man on a mat was told his sins were forgiven and healed? i believe that if i do not take the Genesis account as a miracle of God, then the rest of the bible's miracles must also be "explained." the explanation is that it was a miracle.

 

this is not an issue the earth being round or revolving around the sun. the origins of the universe and our planet are not explained necessarily by millions of years...they don't really know, and more and more evolutionists are conceding.

 

i have not read the other posts, nor will i answer any further...just answering the poll with my opinion.

[JFSinIL]

Catholic..and evolution is how He created everything. And it took a looong time (in human concept of time) not merely seven days (although maybe to God it was only seven days. )

 

Sometimes I think God made the Big Bang to start things off, like a huge science project, and He is just watching to see how it turns out ;-)

Edited June 29, 2010 by JFSinIL

[dangermom]

I would find it very difficult to accept this. Could God do it? Sure. But would he? Would he deliberately lead us to believe something that is not true?

I, too, feel this very strongly. I believe that God is not a liar who would deliberately trick us.

[SailorMom]

I am impressed by the variety of responses - it is very interresting!

I am a deist, and believe in evolution. But I think there is no reason God couldn't have set everything in motion, or at least set up the rules:001_smile:

[Ester Maria]

One major difference between evolution and creationism is one is capable of being disproved while the other is not.

Very important point. :)

 

Science, while it does operate with some initial axiomatic claims (such as, "The world exists." :D), tries to build the model of the world based on the world, as opposed to the religious systems which usually tend to read their a priori beliefs into the world, with more or less success, because those beliefs are a dogma that cannot be given up on.

Your point (well, Popper's point essentially), that the model of the world proposed by science is OFFERED for peer review, criticism and change, and even complete deletion if found insufficient, with a full consciousness that we're talking about a model of the world (and A model, not THE model), not unchangeable truths, is a very important one. Science poses theories that can be disproved. Religion does not.

 

The key here is the direction, in my opinion. If you're religious, you move from a preexisting claim onto the world; if you adhere to science as an explanatory model of the world, you start with the world and build claims from the world, not the other way round.

And of course, then there's the issue of the method. Religious positions sometimes even go as far to negate scientific method as science deals only with the observable portion of the world while religion claims an insight into non-observable and non-verifiable which changes the picture.

 

When we teach science and religion, we make sure to start from these points. As we're not religious, and as my husband is a scientist, I suppose it's not hard to guess what's our preferred explanatory model of the world and how I voted.

 

ETA: We actually do teach Judaism, even though we're technically not religious, but that's for heritage, philosophy and Jewish literacy rather than from a believer's point of view.

Edited June 29, 2010 by Ester Maria

[Gooblink]

I'm not a Christian, or an atheist....I am just here, and filled with awe and wonder. The more I learn from science, the more wonderful it all is.

 

"This world falls on me, with hopes of immortality

 

Everywhere I turn, all this beauty just keeps shaking me"

 

I believe God blessed those Indigo Girls with some awesome talent.

 

One of my favorite songs. :)

 

 

I'm a Christian, arriving here via a wildly crooked path, and teach my kids from both creation and evolution based materials. I think when we get to meet God face-to-face we're all going to be mighty surprised about a lot of the beliefs we clung to as fact.

[MamaSheep]

I voted other, but possibly I should have voted that I'm Christian and believe in a combination of Creation and evolution. I don't want to pick on anyone's poll wording, it's HARD to come up with good wording for those things. I just had a hard time picking.

 

To me, creation and evolution are largely the same thing. It's just that one is the "Who" of it, and the other is what man has been able to figure out so far of the "How" of it. It's my opinion that the seven "days" in the Bible are seven creative periods of unspecified and possibly not even consistent, length. A little research shows that this is perfectly legitimate usage for the Hebrew word in the Bible. To me, the evening and the morning describe the periods beginning and ending, not the sun rising and setting in a 24 hour day. (For one thing the evening and morning in the Biblical account began happening before we are told that the lights of the firmament began to divide the day from the night.) The image of evening and morning, when light waxes and wanes seems to me to indicate that these creative periods didn't begin or end suddenly, but eased in, and eased out. As for the sun and moon being placed in the firmament after many things had already been created on the Earth, my current GUESS would be that the creation account in the Bible represents Moses' explanation of a vision he had in which he saw the creation of the Earth, and that it was at that point in the history of the Earth that the sun and moon became clearly visible through the clearing atmosphere. However, as I said, that's my current opinion and it's certainly subject to change in the face of additional information. It's my opinion that where science and religion differ on these issues it is because neither scripture nor research gives us the whole picture, and there are just things we don't yet understand about it all. To me, there is one, single objective Truth. There is a way things ARE. Reality is not different for one person than it is for another, it's just our perceptions of it that are different. The universe, the Earth, and life on the Earth came about in a specific way--the way it objectively happened. We understand bits of that from scripture, and we understand bits of it from science. We probably have some misconceptions stemming from our interpretation of each as well. But if all that COULD be known on the subject, both from a spiritual perspective and from a scientific perspective WERE known, it would make total sense. I'm quite confident that it all makes sense to God.

[Melinda in VT]

I voted for the third option, but I'm realizing that's not quite accurate.

 

I am a Christian who looks to science and the scientific process, not religion, to explain how the world works and how it developed. As such, I find the evidence supporting evolution to be compelling. (I highly recommend Endless Forms Most Beautiful.)

 

ETA: Like previous posters, I would not be upset if new scientific thought or research pointed to a different explanation.

[dangermom]

Well said, MamaSheep!

[Ester Maria]

It's my opinion that the seven "days" in the Bible are seven creative periods of unspecified and possibly not even consistent, length. A little research shows that this is perfectly legitimate usage for the Hebrew word in the Bible. To me, the evening and the morning describe the periods beginning and ending, not the sun rising and setting in a 24 hour day.

Yes, yom is a "sunset to sunset" period, rather than 24-hour period.

 

But if we're going linguistically, bara doesn't mean "create (ex nihilo)" either, Torah begins with bet, and you have an entire tradition of understanding that the account of creation isn't the account of absolute, first creation... ;)

[Britomart]

I voted "other" because I'm a Christian, and definitely a creationist, but I don't see that as necessarily opposed to evolution.

 

I am sure God created the universe, but if He used evolution as his means to do it, it's no skin off my back! :) I do really like the work that's been done in Intelligent Design, showing how mathematically unlikely our world is - how complex it is. I think it shows the probability of a designing mind behind creation. But, again, if God chose to use evolution as his means, that doesn't make it any less wonderful.

 

It does bother me when people talk about evolution as if it were proven, though. My understanding (and maybe I need further education), is that a theory isn't proved until you can replicate it. And I don't see how anyone could replicate any theory about the origins of the world! Or how they could observe it. Not unless they had a Tardis!

[Desert Rat]

Diana, after the poll, would you please post the statistics you read and how the related to these? I'm interested! Thanks.

[Tabrett]

Haven't read the replies, but I'm a Christian and I believe in creation, but not a literal 7 days. I think the word "day" refers to an amount of time. Several times in the Bible a "day" to God is referred to as a 1000 years. And sometimes a 1000 years is referred to as just a very long time.

 

I also think there is a separation between "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" and what he did on day 1. There is nothing to indicate the time span between God creating space and earth and when God started working ON the "formless and void" earth (the beginning of the 7 days)and gave it light.

 

I do not believe in evolution (the ability for one species to change to another species), but I do believe in adaptation.

 

So....I believe God created it all in an orderly fashion in His perfect time frame and that he gave each species the ability to adapt to their surrounding.