Question for Christians that believe in Evolution (as I do)

[ktgrok]

My son today said that he can't understand how you can believe in Christianity and Evolution. And he is choosing evolution. I was startled to hear this, as we do not come from a conservative tradition. I tried to explain, but I don't think I did a good job. It seems he thinks all Christians are fundamentalist, and in our area that is pretty accurate. Any links for me, to show that you CAN believe in both?

 

I think he did kind of understand when I explained that just like Jesus used parables to teach in the New testament, God used stories to teach deeper truths in the Old Testament.

[Onceuponatime]

That all Christians are fundamentialists is a pretty easy assumption to make. They are the most vocal and insistant about what are the right things to believe. That doesn't mean they are the majority. Christianity doesn't have to be about believing certain things about scientific subjects. It can simply be about following the teachings of Jesus and becoming a disciple (student) of his.

 

One way to read the Bible is to look for the message beyond the story. What is the lesson? Not: is it historically factual? That is actually closer to how ancient peoples approached scripture anyway.

 

The Biologos website is a place where Christians who believe in evolution can go.

Edited May 3, 2012 by Onceuponatime

[HappyCrazyMama]

I will admit I haven't perused it much myself but I have seen this site recommended by old earth/evolution believing Christians.

[OrganicAnn]

So there are different ways to look at it. One don't take the Old Testament literally, but it is an attempt to understand the universe by people who didn't understand science.

 

Some people believe in God started things including evolution. They may or may not be Christians.

 

Some people just hold two incompatible beliefs and are okay with that.

 

I'm sure there are many other ways to look at it.

[nova147]

This is Nova's DH.

 

Evolution and Creationism (for lack of a better term) teach differing truths. Evolution speaks to development. Creationism speaks to origin.

 

Ask your son whether he's at all intrigued by he fact that the very best answer he very best scientists in the world have been able to offer as to he origin of matter is that there was nothing and hen there was light. (I'm sure I read that somewhere before...)

 

There is no conflict between evolution and Christianity. Depending, of course, on ow one defines his terms. There is no room for science in the worldview of a literalist, fundamentalist Christian. Just as there is no room for miracles in the worldview of a skeptical, scientistic atheist.

 

Did God create the world in six consecutive twenty-four hour periods? No. Not IMO. But that doesn't mean that he didn't create the world.

 

Offer your son this simple proof:

 

Matter exists.

Matter either, therefore, always existed or it came from nothing.

 

What evidence is there to believe that matter always existed?

 

This is the problem with scientistic materialism. It requires faith in the omnipresence of matter AND in the impossibility of miracles.

 

Try the same proof with life.

 

Life either always existed or it came from non-life. Which one?

[mhg]

Whew....it's too late to get into this so here's my two minute typo-filled quick response.

Christianity and Evolution are two different belief systems/subjects linked by the Bible. The Bible is a major source of where we get our ideas on both subjects. I guess the idea becomes how can one accept/follow/believe the Biblical tradition of Christ (Christianity) and the same source's (Bible) teachings on evolution. The Bible doesn't address evolution per se, but it does address how things originated(broadly) -- how they got started (that God's ideas were spoken into existance ex nihilo (from nothing). Evolution is the study of how things evolve/change/alter over time. The Bible doesn't address this. Many (most?) Christians try to make a definitive/specific timeline of the universe from the Bible (and they do this by drawing conclusions from who begat who and whether this dude lived 900 years or 300, etc. and then they use this as a basis for the timeline of the universe). In my view, it's ridiculous (and I suspect ridiculous to the Creator who said, "Where were you (Job) when I set the foundations of the Earth?" (In other words, you people weren't even around here back then!). I have no trouble at all to holding to a firm belief in the fact that God created/started this whole ball of wax and that the loss of a fish's eyeballs if it lives for decades in a cave doesn't matter to a hill of beans in the grand scheme. The point of Genesis (early chapters) is that we get that God CREATED this whole amazing universe and for us to get the problem of sin (how it got started) and how he started a plan on how to save us from it.

 

The FACT that HIS creation alters/changes over time is irrefutable and the fact that so many Christians refute it and try to scrunch all of time into a measly 5000 years is, to be frank, embarrassing to me.

Edited May 3, 2012 by mhg

[justamouse]

Well, you can tell him that no other religion thought to look for a beginning, which is why a Priest went looking for The Big Bang. He knew everything started Ex Nihilo. So it actually is not only Christian, but *very* Christian.

 

And here is a great, quick explanation as to how evolution and Christianity are compatible.

 

 

“The biblical author's purpose is not to write science at all,” Fr. Spitzer emphasized, especially given that “obviously science has not even been developed yet.”

 

“So, can science and the Bible be reconciled?” he asked. “Of course – the Bible is doing something theological and science is doing science.”

Fr. Spitzer then cited two major encyclicals from Pius XII – “Divino Afflante Spiritu” and “Humane generis” – clarifying that “Catholics can believe in evolution.”

 

“The only real limitation is that we do not believe that the human soul came from an evolutionary process,” he added, “because evolutionary processes are material, they're bodily."

 

“Even though human embodiment may have evolved over a varied period of time – and it could have evolved even from subordinate species – the human soul is a special creation of God - it transcends the material order.”

 

 

My bold.

 

Here's the link

 

I tell my kids science tells us how, the bible tells us why.

Edited May 3, 2012 by justamouse

[Caitilin]

The question that always helps me is this: is our God so small that He can fit into a (metaphorical) box which we humans have made and can understand? If the answer is yes, then I can see why one would not believe in, never mind worship, such a being.

But in my view, the answer is no--God is so much bigger, in every sense, than we can imagine. If we completely understood Him and His ways, He would not be God.

God is a god of truth--He does not deceive us or trick us. If we humans come upon a piece of the whole Truth, it is still truth, and truth cannot contradict itself. The truths which we find in science are expressions of the Truth we find in God.

:grouphug: for you and your thoughtful ds.:grouphug:

[ktgrok]

thanks everyone. This is complicated by his Aspergers, so concrete makes sense to him, abstract not so much. I used to beat myself up about his lack of religious understanding, but we had a decent conversation tonight, and I'm realizing that religion/spirituality are going to come later for him, as he gains maturity, and that is ok. He will never have a 'child's faith", and that is ok. Hopefully, someday, he will believe, and it will be all the stronger for the fight to get there. (as an example, Mere Christianity is the first/only book that made an impact)

[Gailmegan]

Check out BioLogos. http://biologos.org/

[mudboots]

I just ran across this today. It's a talk done by an old college friend of mine, now a pastor. You might listen to it yourself first, before passing it along to your son. This person believes in micro evolution. He doesn't believe in macro evolution, but he goes at it from a scientific angle, not a religious one. Although I probably do lean toward macro evolution, I'm posting it, partly because it's fresh in my mind, and partly because I'm similarly frustrated that it seems like almost all Christians in our area are vocally 7-day creationists. I found my friend's scientific approach refreshing.

 

He also briefly mentions a point that has helped me: Much of the Bible is written for the purpose of teaching spiritual principles. Not all of it is intended to be scientific fact, exact history, or invariable formulas. At this point in my understanding, I take the creation story as a form of poetic description. Different genres of writing have different purposes, and the Bible contains many genres.

Edited May 3, 2012 by mudboots

[Little Nyssa]

I like this book: The Language of God, a scientist presents evidence for belief-- by Francis Collins, for a Christian who believes in evolution.

[albeto]

My son today said that he can't understand how you can believe in Christianity and Evolution. And he is choosing evolution. I was startled to hear this, as we do not come from a conservative tradition.

 

My son was about 12 or 13 when he lost his faith. My kids always only knew evolution. I would encourage you to try and resist talking him into believing one thing or the other. You'll likely want to have the doors of communication open even if he rejects the faith, and knowing he can talk to you without there being a perceived agenda to your talks will make it easier for him to trust you with these vulnerable thoughts and ideas.

[Mommy Grommy]

I like this book: The Language of God, a scientist presents evidence for belief-- by Francis Collins, for a Christian who believes in evolution.

 

I second this book. Francis Collins himself was inspired by Mere Christianity and seems to have traveled a road similar to C.S. Lewis.

[Dolphin]

I don't know where you live, but if you are near San Fran, or ever will be, I was amazed by the California Academy of Science and their bookstore. They had so much choice on evolution books. The person in the bookstore was really knowledgable about the books too.

 

I will look for the book tomorrow as it is late, but it delved straight into the fact that evolution and Christianity are not on opposite sides of a battleground. That they can, and do exist peacefully in many peoples minds.

 

My husband (who is a scientist) told me how science has shown how the Bible did get it in the right order, and that is pretty impressive for a document of that age.

 

God came up with the concept of Man, and put the wheels in motion for Man to walk the Earth, he designed it and implemented it. Evolution is just one of many tools he used.

 

I look at Evolution as proof of how amazing God is. It would be easy for someone to make a doll. It is inanimate, and other than deteriorating it won't change. God created not only life, but life that would not stay stagnate. Life that would change and adapt...even Steve Jobs couldn't do that, when you want the newest gadget, you have to buy the new one, your old one won't evolve.

 

Ok, it's late and I have had an ambien, I hope I made sense. I will post the book title tomorrow.

 

Nicole

[MamaSheep]

One thing I find interesting is that the Hebrew word translated into English as "day" in the Genesis creation story (transliterated as "yowm") can have more than one meaning, just like the English word "day". For example, it can mean a 24 hour period, or it can mean an unspecified period of time with more or less a beginning and an end, like "back in your grandfather's day", or "in the day of the dinosaur". It can also mean day as opposed to night. But it's that unspecified time period that interests me in relation to the Creation story.

 

Most of the times it appears in the Old Testament it is translated as "day" (2008 times in the KJV), as "time" (64 times), "daily" (44), "ever" (18), "year" (14), "continually" (10), "when" (10), "as" (10), "while" (8), and various assorted other English words.

 

Here are some examples. In each verse I'll bold the word that is the translation of yowm.

 

Genesis 4:3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.

 

 

Genesis 40:4 And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them: and they continued a season in ward.

 

Genesis 43:9 I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever:

 

Genesis 47:28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years.

 

 

Exodus 10:6 And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians; which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers' fathers have seen, since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day. And he turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh.

 

Exodus 13:10 Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in his season from year to year.

 

At any rate, that's a sampling skimming through entries in a concordance. USUALLY this word does mean a "day", as in a 24 hour, day and night kind of day. But that meaning would not make sense in any of these verses. Cain could not have brought forth a crop in a 24 hour day. Joseph was obviously in prison more than 24 hours. Jacob's "day" (age) is specified as being longer than 24 hours (which is obvious in any case), and one's fathers and fathers' fathers were obviously upon the earth more than 24 hours as well. But these are all occurrences of the same Hebrew word translated as "day" in Genesis. So it obviously CAN mean something other than a 24 hour day to the writers of Genesis.

 

It does not seem unreasonable to me (and I've seen this confirmed by scholars who know Hebrew and aren't relying on a concordance like I am) that the "days" of creation were not 24 hour days, but could be understood to be six periods of unspecified time--six vastly extended "seasons", or "ages" during which creation occurred.

 

If that is the case, then evolution makes very good sense as the tool, or method God used to "create" plant and animal life on the Earth.

 

This is more or less how I explained it to my Aspie (who is reading "Mere Christianity" right now!), and he seemed to think it made sense too.

 

As far as things like the sun and moon coming after the earth in the Genesis creation story, here's how I currently think of it (but my opinion on these things is still fairly fluid and gets tweaked regularly as I learn more).

 

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God created everything in the universe. And after a while, God began to "create" the Earth. There was already SOMETHING there (from when God created the universe). The verse talks about the "face of the deep" and the "face of the waters", and it says God moved upon them. Interestingly, science tells us that a solar system is formed when there is movement in a nebula that causes the gasses and space debris to coalesce such that there is enough gravity to pull in more, and more, and more "stuff" from the nebula. Might "the deep" have been the nebula science tells us birthed the Earth? As more "stuff" is pulled in by the gravity, the gravity increases and the density in the center of the mass increases. When it increases to a critical point, the atomic structure of the materials is affected by the immense gravitational forces pulling on them, and an atomic reaction begins in a tremendous explosion. (Let there be light? I find it interesting that in the Genesis account the "let there be light" at the beginning of the Earth's creation comes AFTER it says God created the heavens and the earth. So the universe could have been around a while before the Earth as we know it was formed--which is what science tells us.) When the explosive force of the nuclear reaction and the gravitational force generated by the immense mass balance each other, a star is formed, along with the "stuff" around it that becomes planets and asteroids and whatnot. (If the balance isn't right, you get space junk all over the place, or else a really dense glob.) And since the planetary "stuff" would be revolving around the new sun, there would be the times of darkness and times of light we call day and night. On a newly formed planet Earth, though, as I understand it, science tells us that the atmosphere would have been such that the sun and moon would not be visible from the planet's surface. They would not yet appear in "the firmament", or sky. After that, science and the Bible agree that there would have been a long stretch of time during which the atmosphere would have changed, liquid water would have developed, seas would have formed, and the land would have shifted into continents experiencing tectonic movement, and all that jazz. So that would be all that stuff about the "firmament" and the "waters" and the "dry land" in days two and three in Genesis. Also in day three we have the creation of plants. Science tells us that during this time microscopic organisms developed that could photosynthesize, and that these are the ancestors of all modern plants--the primordial beginnings of grasses and trees and such. And they could reproduce "after their own kind". Evidently, science tells us, the photosynthetic processes worked some changes in the atmosphere, causing it to clear up to the point where the sun and moon finally became visible from the surface of the earth. Genesis tells us that on the fourth "day" of creation the "great lights" God made (previously?) appear in the sky and become useful as measures of seasons and years (if someone were around on the surface of the earth to count them--they're not yet, but it's set up for when they are). They would not have been able to function that way without the atmospheric changes brought about by the photosynthetic microorganisms. In the fifth day of the Biblical creation, animal life begins in the sea--which also agrees with science. Specifically mentioned are sea creatures and birds. If you view dinosaurs as a step in the evolutionary "creation" of birds, then science agrees with this as well. In fact, about the time the "day" of the dinosaur was coming to a close, science tells us that dinosaurs were developing feathers and flight, and beginning to evolve into birds. There was still a great deal of evolution still to go before modern birds arrived, but certainly this period of Earth's history was dominated by sea creatures and the creatures that would evolve into birds (and bugs...). In the fifth creative period of Genesis, a new kind of animal life develops, discussed mostly in general terms, but represented by "cattle" specifically. One thing cattle are known for is giving milk, and science tells us that after the "day of the dinosaur" is when mammals began to evolve. Both science and Genesis tell us that this period of development culminated in the "creation" (or evolution) of humans.

 

So up to this point, for me, there is no real disagreement between science and the Biblical creation story. This is where it goes a little dicey for me, personally, though, and I'm not quite sure what I think. I mean to say that I am SURE that God created mankind, I'm just not sure how He did it. The Bible is fairly vague. Genesis 2 has a different focus than Genesis 1, and in some places it's a little hard to tell what is meant. It seems to me that God forming man from the dust of the earth COULD refer to the evolutionary process, beginning with microscopic chemicals ("dust") that were part of the earth, and moving through cellular life, and on up the evolutionary chain to modern humans. If so, Adam could have been the first human, evolutionarily speaking, to be ready to house a "human" spirit. On the other hand, it could mean that there was a separate creation of man in which God constructed modern man from the ground up (so to speak). If so, God might have correlated the dna of the new human creation so that it matched the evolutionary patterns on the planet where they would be sent to live, or the dna might have become meshed with evolutionary genetic patterns when the "sons of God" married the "daughters of men" in Genesis 6--IF "sons of God" means the humans resulting from a separate creation, and "daughters of men" means humanoids who had evolved as seen in the fossil record. Which is an interesting thought, to me, when we consider that mitochondrial dna is only passed from the mother, and is what is used (if I understand correctly) to trace biological connections. But as I say, although I see interesting possibilities, I do not yet really have an opinion on any of this part. I just don't think there are enough "dots" yet, either in the Bible or in science, to start "connecting" them and expect to see a coherent pattern emerge. But I can see some ways that the two COULD correlate eventually when more information becomes available.

 

At any rate, those are my thoughts on it, as a Christian who believes in geologic time frames and evolution. Hope it helps. :)

Edited May 3, 2012 by MamaSheep

[stripe]

It seems he thinks all Christians are fundamentalist, and in our area that is pretty accurate.

 

Is there any sort of non-fundamentalist group that you are or can be a part of, that would broaden his view of what you believe? It might be beneficial in this and other areas.

[TKDmom]

.

Edited May 3, 2012 by bonniebeth4
Nevermind

[ma23peas]

If there were no evolution, how did we wnd up with so many differing species after the flood? I do not believe man evolved from a water walking amoeba...he was created whole...with no belly button :) but the ingenious ability to adapt o changing climates and surroundings is most definitely an intelligent design.

[Harriet Vane]

I do not embrace evolution in its entirety. I am a creationist, but find some parts of evolutionary theory intriguing.

 

However, I don't think it really matters. For me it comes down to believing that WHATEVER it was that happened, that God started it. From that point it's just a question of asking HOW or what processes God used to bring about the world we have now.

[Marylou]

thanks everyone. This is complicated by his Aspergers, so concrete makes sense to him, abstract not so much. I used to beat myself up about his lack of religious understanding, but we had a decent conversation tonight, and I'm realizing that religion/spirituality are going to come later for him, as he gains maturity, and that is ok. He will never have a 'child's faith", and that is ok. Hopefully, someday, he will believe, and it will be all the stronger for the fight to get there. (as an example, Mere Christianity is the first/only book that made an impact)

 

Child-like faith is a gift from God. Some people receive it as a toddler; some receive it in old age. Keep praying for him.

[Juniper]

I just wanted to say thanks for the thoughtful posts on this thread. It has been very encouraging to me personally. :001_smile:

[katilac]

Well, you can tell him that no other religion thought to look for a beginning, which is why a Priest went looking for The Big Bang. He knew everything started Ex Nihilo. So it actually is not only Christian, but *very* Christian.

 

I don't agree with this argument, if I'm understanding it correctly. Every culture has a creation story; Christians were definitely not the first to "look for a beginning."

[justamouse]

I like this book: The Language of God, a scientist presents evidence for belief-- by Francis Collins, for a Christian who believes in evolution.

 

:iagree:

 

That book helped me SO much. And you can tell CS Lewis had a big impact on how he wrote it. I actually make my kids read it as a part of their science curriculum.

[QuirkyKapers]

For me it comes down to believing that WHATEVER it was that happened, that God started it. From that point it's just a question of asking HOW or what processes God used to bring about the world we have now.

 

 

:iagree: I have trouble drawing a line in the sand that creation happened this way or that way when I really don't know for sure how creation and everything all went down. For all I know, it was part literal days, part undetermined time. I believe there is a Creator. Could the Creator have started the ball rolling and than things evolved, sure. Maybe the Creator spoke and a big bang happened and things were more clearly defined later by that Creator? The Bible gives broad brushstrokes: Day 1 such and such was created, Day 2 such and such happened, etc. There are lots of little details that are left out. I won't know for sure until I die and am in front of the Creator what really happened.

Edited May 3, 2012 by QuirkyKapers

[justamouse]

I don't agree with this argument, if I'm understanding it correctly. Every culture has a creation story; Christians were definitely not the first to "look for a beginning."

 

Sorry it's taken me a bit to get to this, computer's been wonky. (it's not liking me having multiple screens open to link the answers)

 

I lent the book out that explains this thoroughly, so I'm not going to be able to do nearly as well. The book is How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. There's chapters on law, science, and whatnot. The author has a PhD from Columbia, so he's no shirk, though his titles tend to be a little crazy. :001_smile:

 

Ex Nihilo yeah, wiki, (sorry Larry!) but it's a start. It's not that they don't believe in creation, some do, but believing in creation out of nothing is a very Jewish and Christian thought. Here's a google book page on comparative religions that goes through a bit.

 

Too often contemporary discussions about the relationship between science and religion suffer from an ignorance of history, and our question is an example. For we can save God and natural theology from the dustbins simply by turning to the sophisticated analyses of the natural sciences and creation that took place during the age of High Scholasticism. In the thirteenth century, brilliant scholars such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas wrestled with the implications for Christian theology of the most advanced science of their day — namely, the works of Aristotle and his Muslim commentators, which had recently been translated into Latin. Following in the tradition of Muslim and Jewish thinkers, Aquinas developed an analysis of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo that remains one of the enduring accomplishments of Western culture. His analysis provides refreshing clarity for our often confused contemporary discussion of the relationship between science and religion.

It seemed to many of Aquinas' contemporaries that there was a fundamental incompatibility between the claim of ancient physics that something cannot come from nothing and the affirmation of Christian faith that God produced everything from nothing. Furthermore, for the Greeks, since something must come from something, there must always be something — the universe must be eternal.

 

Recent speculations that the universe began as "quantum tunneling from nothing" reaffirm the ancient Greek principle that you cannot get something from nothing. For the "vacuum" of modern particle physics, whose "fluctuation" some see as bringing our universe into existence, is not absolutely nothing. It is not anything like our present universe, but it still is something. Or else, how could it fluctuate?

 

An eternal universe seemed incompatible with a universe created ex nihilo, and so some medieval Christians thought that Greek science, especially in the person of Aristotle, ought to be banned, since it contradicted the truths of revelation. Aquinas, believing that the truths of science and the truths of faith could not contradict one another — God being the author of all truth — went to work to reconcile Aristotelian science and Christian revelation.

 

The key to Aquinas' analysis is the distinction he draws between creation and change. The natural sciences, whether Aristotelian or those of our own day, have as their subject the world of changing things: from sub-atomic particles to acorns to galaxies. Whenever there is a change there must be something that changes. The Greeks are right: from nothing, nothing comes; that is, if the verb "to come" means a change. All change requires an underlying material reality.

 

Creation, on the other hand, is the radical causing of the whole existence of whatever exists. To cause completely something to exist is not to produce a change in something, is not to work on or with some already existing material. If, in producing something new, an agent were to use something already existing, the agent would not by itself be the complete cause of the new thing. But such a complete causing is precisely what creation is. To create is to give existence, and all things are totally dependent upon God for the very fact that they are. God does not take nothing and make something out of "it." Rather, anything left entirely to itself, separated from the cause of its existence, would be absolutely nothing. Creation is not some distant event; it is the continuing, complete causing of the existence of everything that is. Creation, thus, is a subject for metaphysics and theology, not for the natural sciences.

Aquinas saw no contradiction in the notion of an eternal created universe. For, even if the universe had no temporal beginning, it still would depend upon God for its very being. There is no conflict between the doctrine of creation and any physical theory. Theories in the natural sciences account for change. Whether the changes described are biological or cosmological, unending or finite, they remain processes. Creation accounts for the existence of things, not for changes in things.

 

 

Link

 

William E. Carrol, Aquinas and the Big Bang

Edited May 3, 2012 by justamouse

[Mergath]

Does he know anything about thermodynamics? The Second Law of Thermodynamics basically states that the universe tends to disorder. Matter doesn't move from a less ordered state to a more ordered state on its own. In my mind, evolution is an argument for the existence of God. I don't see how DNA could have come from random combinations of molecules or how complex organisms could have evolved from simple organisms without a Creator guiding the process.

 

I wouldn't use this argument, op. The second law of thermodynamics applies only to isolated systems. Earth is not an isolated system. We receive energy from the sun. The second law of thermodynamics does NOT apply to evolution.

[Greta]

He also briefly mentions a point that has helped me: Much of the Bible is written for the purpose of teaching spiritual principles. Not all of it is intended to be scientific fact, exact history, or invariable formulas.

 

 

This is something that I have come to realize as well, largely through a podcast series that Father Thomas Hopko did about Charles Darwin, creation, and evolution. It was very enlightening. His basic point is that the purpose of the Bible is to convey spiritual truths, not always factual, historical, or scientific ones. With regards to the creation story, he contrasts it with what many other cultures and religions believed at that time. Some believed, for example, that the sun was a god and the source of life. But in the Genesis account, God creates the sun, and he does so AFTER he has created plant life, showing that He, not the sun, is the source of life. Many philosophers at that time believed that matter was evil and spirit was good. But the creation story shows us that God created matter and called it good. These, I believe, are the kinds of truths that the Bible conveys.

 

 

Also, I second the recommendation for The Language of God. Excellent book!

[abacus2]

I can't remember the name of the book right now, but my dh found an intriguing book about 15 years ago. It presented the idea that the theory of relativity explains the apparent discrepancy between the age of the earth and the days in Genesis. Literal 24 days as described from God's perspective would be millions of years from our perspective on Earth.

[Proudpapa77]

Does he know anything about thermodynamics? The Second Law of Thermodynamics basically states that the universe tends to disorder. Matter doesn't move from a less ordered state to a more ordered state on its own. In my mind, evolution is an argument for the existence of God. I don't see how DNA could have come from random combinations of molecules or how complex organisms could have evolved from simple organisms without a Creator guiding the process.

 

The 2nd law of thermodynamics argument for creation has been so thoroughly refuted that even answersingenesis folks urge people not to use it as it has become a source of embarrassment. If "you don''t see" how complex organism could have evolved from simple organisms, it is because you are willfully ignoring the evidence.

[TKDmom]

I wouldn't use this argument, op. The second law of thermodynamics applies only to isolated systems. Earth is not an isolated system. We receive energy from the sun. The second law of thermodynamics does NOT apply to evolution.

 

The 2nd law of thermodynamics argument for creation has been so thoroughly refuted that even answersingenesis folks urge people not to use it as it has become a source of embarrassment. If "you don''t see" how complex organism could have evolved from simple organisms, it is because you are willfully ignoring the evidence.

 

Oh well...Sorry to display my ignorance. I willfully ignore the arguments between creationism and evolution because it's a non-issue to me. I see the Bible as a religious text that was never intended to explain things scientifically, and I'm happy to accept evolution as the best explanation that scientists have been able to devise for explaining why life on earth looks the way it does. My knowledge of evolution is limited to whatever they covered in Biology 100 many moons ago. And I hated the semester of thermodynamics that I had to take...so I should just learn to keep my mouth shut. :blushing:

[magistrasan]

I was raised in a non-Christian family - and during one of my public university classes, after my fellow biology majors and I had been well-grounded in the latest developmental, evolutionary biology, a professor gave a talk on the "probability" of one protein (or RNA/DNA) being accidentally formed. The short version can be found here.

 

It dawned on me that perhaps it took "more" faith to believe in the "everything is here by chance & accident" explanation of evolution than the creation explanation. Whether we are products of design and purpose vs. products of chance goes to the very core of who we are and what we believe and why we are here.

 

Further, while we can certainly have changes and adaptations of a species to their environment(microevolution), no direct link anywhere has been shown that "new" species are or were ever created(macroevolution). I have a strong science background and have taught through the AP biology course a few times and will again this year. The "story" of evolution has so many holes the ship is sinking. Most of us on this board walked away from public school training for good reasons - so use the logic training we've been practicing and examine both sides well.

[elfgivas]

we loved these books...

 

Born With a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story : Book 1 (Sharing Nature With Children Book)

 

Jennifer Morgan[/url] (Author), Dana Lynne Andersen (Author, Illustrator)

 

 

and still do.....

[TXBeth]

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God created everything in the universe. And after a while, God began to "create" the Earth. There was already SOMETHING there (from when God created the universe). The verse talks about the "face of the deep" and the "face of the waters", and it says God moved upon them. Interestingly, science tells us that a solar system is formed when there is movement in a nebula that causes the gasses and space debris to coalesce such that there is enough gravity to pull in more, and more, and more "stuff" from the nebula. Might "the deep" have been the nebula science tells us birthed the Earth? As more "stuff" is pulled in by the gravity, the gravity increases and the density in the center of the mass increases. When it increases to a critical point, the atomic structure of the materials is affected by the immense gravitational forces pulling on them, and an atomic reaction begins in a tremendous explosion. (Let there be light? I find it interesting that in the Genesis account the "let there be light" at the beginning of the Earth's creation comes AFTER it says God created the heavens and the earth. So the universe could have been around a while before the Earth as we know it was formed--which is what science tells us.) When the explosive force of the nuclear reaction and the gravitational force generated by the immense mass balance each other, a star is formed, along with the "stuff" around it that becomes planets and asteroids and whatnot. (If the balance isn't right, you get space junk all over the place, or else a really dense glob.) And since the planetary "stuff" would be revolving around the new sun, there would be the times of darkness and times of light we call day and night. On a newly formed planet Earth, though, as I understand it, science tells us that the atmosphere would have been such that the sun and moon would not be visible from the planet's surface. They would not yet appear in "the firmament", or sky. After that, science and the Bible agree that there would have been a long stretch of time during which the atmosphere would have changed, liquid water would have developed, seas would have formed, and the land would have shifted into continents experiencing tectonic movement, and all that jazz. So that would be all that stuff about the "firmament" and the "waters" and the "dry land" in days two and three in Genesis. Also in day three we have the creation of plants. Science tells us that during this time microscopic organisms developed that could photosynthesize, and that these are the ancestors of all modern plants--the primordial beginnings of grasses and trees and such. And they could reproduce "after their own kind". Evidently, science tells us, the photosynthetic processes worked some changes in the atmosphere, causing it to clear up to the point where the sun and moon finally became visible from the surface of the earth. Genesis tells us that on the fourth "day" of creation the "great lights" God made (previously?) appear in the sky and become useful as measures of seasons and years (if someone were around on the surface of the earth to count them--they're not yet, but it's set up for when they are). They would not have been able to function that way without the atmospheric changes brought about by the photosynthetic microorganisms. In the fifth day of the Biblical creation, animal life begins in the sea--which also agrees with science. Specifically mentioned are sea creatures and birds. If you view dinosaurs as a step in the evolutionary "creation" of birds, then science agrees with this as well. In fact, about the time the "day" of the dinosaur was coming to a close, science tells us that dinosaurs were developing feathers and flight, and beginning to evolve into birds. There was still a great deal of evolution still to go before modern birds arrived, but certainly this period of Earth's history was dominated by sea creatures and the creatures that would evolve into birds (and bugs...). In the fifth creative period of Genesis, a new kind of animal life develops, discussed mostly in general terms, but represented by "cattle" specifically. One thing cattle are known for is giving milk, and science tells us that after the "day of the dinosaur" is when mammals began to evolve. Both science and Genesis tell us that this period of development culminated in the "creation" (or evolution) of humans.

 

So up to this point, for me, there is no real disagreement between science and the Biblical creation story. This is where it goes a little dicey for me, personally, though, and I'm not quite sure what I think. I mean to say that I am SURE that God created mankind, I'm just not sure how He did it. The Bible is fairly vague. Genesis 2 has a different focus than Genesis 1, and in some places it's a little hard to tell what is meant. It seems to me that God forming man from the dust of the earth COULD refer to the evolutionary process, beginning with microscopic chemicals ("dust") that were part of the earth, and moving through cellular life, and on up the evolutionary chain to modern humans. If so, Adam could have been the first human, evolutionarily speaking, to be ready to house a "human" spirit. On the other hand, it could mean that there was a separate creation of man in which God constructed modern man from the ground up (so to speak). If so, God might have correlated the dna of the new human creation so that it matched the evolutionary patterns on the planet where they would be sent to live, or the dna might have become meshed with evolutionary genetic patterns when the "sons of God" married the "daughters of men" in Genesis 6--IF "sons of God" means the humans resulting from a separate creation, and "daughters of men" means humanoids who had evolved as seen in the fossil record. Which is an interesting thought, to me, when we consider that mitochondrial dna is only passed from the mother, and is what is used (if I understand correctly) to trace biological connections. But as I say, although I see interesting possibilities, I do not yet really have an opinion on any of this part. I just don't think there are enough "dots" yet, either in the Bible or in science, to start "connecting" them and expect to see a coherent pattern emerge. But I can see some ways that the two COULD correlate eventually when more information becomes available.

 

At any rate, those are my thoughts on it, as a Christian who believes in geologic time frames and evolution. Hope it helps. :)

 

 

For a Christian raised fundamental and educated with Abeka, who is just in the past few years starting to explore the idea that evolution is not necessarily anti-Bible, this was a great post. Thank you.

[WishboneDawn]

I was raised in a non-Christian family - and during one of my public university classes, after my fellow biology majors and I had been well-grounded in the latest developmental, evolutionary biology, a professor gave a talk on the "probability" of one protein (or RNA/DNA) being accidentally formed. The short version can be found here.

 

This is such an old thread but I see this point brought up a lot.

 

If there's a very small probability of something happening that doesn't mean it won't happen or that it take a leap of faith to believe it could happen, it's a statement that says something is absolutely possible.

 

Extremely improbable things happen every day. People win lotteries, get struck by lightening, slit open the belly of a fish they just caught to find the ring their grandmother lost in the lake fifty years ago. Chance is a huge and active force in our lives.

 

So the odds against a protein being formed accidentally may be huge but the fact that there ARE odds means it's possible and given time where those odds are challenged again and again and again and again (because with an earth that's billions of years old there is certainly lots of time) it should not be surprising or even remarkable that one of those times the odds are defeated and the improbable happens.

[deacongirl]

http://oldearth.org/

I found this site very helpful in addressing my concerns, and I bet your son would find it interesting.

[J-rap]

Many (most?) Christians try to make a definitive/specific timeline of the universe from the Bible (and they do this by drawing conclusions from who begat who and whether this dude lived 900 years or 300, etc. and then they use this as a basis for the timeline of the universe).

 

 

Just a comment on the "most" :) Before I began homeschooling, I had never heard of Christians NOT accepting evolution! And I had grown up in a faithful Christian home, youth groups, Christian summer camps, etc. So although the Young Earth theory is popular among homeschoolers and the very vocal fundamentalist Christians, I don't necessarily think the majority of Christians adhere to that timeline and believe in YE.

[kiana]

I was raised in a non-Christian family - and during one of my public university classes, after my fellow biology majors and I had been well-grounded in the latest developmental, evolutionary biology, a professor gave a talk on the "probability" of one protein (or RNA/DNA) being accidentally formed. The short version can be found here.

 

I would strongly recommend against using AIG material with an Asberger's student who is already inclined against religion.

 

With specific respect to the 'probability' argument, the OP's son is quite likely to search for and find a site like this: http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2011/08/16/probability-and-evolution/

[TammyS]

I haven't studied evolution enough to know whether I think it's fully right, fully wrong, or a pretty good guess but incomplete.....and as a very conservative Christian my thought has always been.....who cares? Even if evolution is 100% correct...so? God can create the heavens and the earth any way he sees fit. Done really badly (by me) this is called the "first causes" argument. So there was a big bang...great. Where did that stuff come from? Oh a big bang before that? Great. Where did that stuff come from?....and so on.

 

Evolution or not, young earth or not, should be a question of scientific curiosity, not one of theological necessity, because it really has no bearing on whether or not there is a God and whether or not the Christian belief about that God is correct.

 

The only Christians for whom evolution should present a big problem are those who take an absolute literal reading of the entire Bible (which is none, if you pin them down...they read literally ones that they want to be literal and just kinda (sub-consciencely, I am sure) blank out the ones they don't).

[Kathryn]

Just a comment on the "most" :) Before I began homeschooling, I had never heard of Christians NOT accepting evolution! And I had grown up in a faithful Christian home, youth groups, Christian summer camps, etc. So although the Young Earth theory is popular among homeschoolers and the very vocal fundamentalist Christians, I don't necessarily think the majority of Christians adhere to that timeline and believe in YE.

 

:iagree: with that. The first time I heard of "Young Earth" was in a college history course when discussing Ussher. We all were dumbfounded. Outside of homeschooling circles, I have never heard of anyone believing in YEC.

[TammyS]

:iagree: with that. The first time I heard of "Young Earth" was in a college history course when discussing Ussher. We all were dumbfounded. Outside of homeschooling circles, I have never heard of anyone believing in YEC.

 

:iagree: I had never heard of it - at all - until a few years ago when we joined a co-op and I signed my son up for a science class and ended up going "what on earth is this?".

 

Here's what bothers me about the whole YE fad - it's not that I'm sure they are wrong (because I'm not SURE they are wrong), it's that every person I have met who holds it finds it so theologically necessary. As if God will hold it against us if we are scientifically mistaken. I find that scary.

[ApronMama]

YE is not at all exclusive to homeschooling circles. There are OE Christians who don't believe in evolution, OE Christians who do believe in evolution, YE'rs who fit an "anti-science" stereotype and very thoughtful and well educated YE Christians as well. I know people I respect in every camp.

 

I too find it scary if kids are set up to believe it is an either/or with science and Scripture. Secular science wants it this way, as do some Christians. I get as tired of secular scientists presenting unproven theory as fundamental truth as I do with others presenting a singular reading of Genesis as detailed scientific fact.

[magistrasan]

"So the odds against a protein being formed accidentally may be huge but the fact that there ARE odds means it's possible and given time where those odds are challenged again and again and again and again (because with an earth that's billions of years old there is certainly lots of time) it should not be surprising or even remarkable that one of those times the odds are defeated and the improbable happens."

 

And with respect, the more you learn about how intricately and perfectly all living organisms and their parts work together, it becomes harder and harder to believe that it all happened by chance. It's not just the "accident" of forming the first protein, it's the accident of the protein being able to replicate itself without all the necessary components required in a living cell. It's the ability of that first protein to fold itself properly so that it is functional - when one improper fold makes it useless. It's the ability of that protein to perform all the necessary functions even the simplest organism must perform.

 

And you do not have to be a "fundamentalist" Christian to think there are serious problems with evolution. The "intelligent design" movement is challenging evolution on a purely scientific basis. Michael Behe's book, "Darwin's Black Box" is an excellent start. Dr. Cornelius Hunter's blog has a lot of current information here: http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/ on how evolution itself is based in religious thought.

 

Truly grappling with the many of the arguments in creation/evolution requires quite a lot of scientific background and training. However, this controversy is a core conflict in academia and in our society and goes to our foundational ideas about who we are and where we come from. It's worth the struggle to read both sides, sources from the California Academy of Science as well as some of the sources I cited above.

[MamaSheep]

For a Christian raised fundamental and educated with Abeka, who is just in the past few years starting to explore the idea that evolution is not necessarily anti-Bible, this was a great post. Thank you.

 

I'm glad you found it useful. :)

[katilac]

Just a comment on the "most" :) Before I began homeschooling, I had never heard of Christians NOT accepting evolution! And I had grown up in a faithful Christian home, youth groups, Christian summer camps, etc. So although the Young Earth theory is popular among homeschoolers and the very vocal fundamentalist Christians, I don't necessarily think the majority of Christians adhere to that timeline and believe in YE.

 

Add me to this list. I definitely never heard of YE before home schooling.

[mathwonk]

The following quote occurs at the end of this link:

 

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/indepth/church-apologises-to-charles-darwin-over-theory-of-evolution/story-e6frewsr-1111117484124

 

"Dr Brown, the director of mission and public affairs of the Archbishops' Council of the Church of England, said there was nothing incompatible between Darwin's scientific theories and Christian teaching."

[LittleIzumi]

One thing I find interesting is that the Hebrew word translated into English as "day" in the Genesis creation story (transliterated as "yowm") can have more than one meaning, just like the English word "day". For example, it can mean a 24 hour period, or it can mean an unspecified period of time with more or less a beginning and an end, like "back in your grandfather's day", or "in the day of the dinosaur". It can also mean day as opposed to night. But it's that unspecified time period that interests me in relation to the Creation story

 

....

 

At any rate, those are my thoughts on it, as a Christian who believes in geologic time frames and evolution. Hope it helps. :)

 

Okay, that's you. You need to work on an LDS (or non-denom Christian) curriculum, lol. I'll help.

[Wheres Toto]

Add me to this list. I definitely never heard of YE before home schooling.

 

:iagree:

[MamaSheep]

Okay, that's you. You need to work on an LDS (or non-denom Christian) curriculum, lol. I'll help.

 

I have kicked around the idea of making a science curriculum enough to come to the conclusion that...well...I would need help.

 

I have also come to the conclusion that I would likely want to use existing books about science rather than write up my own--I lack both expertise and credibility (my degree is in art). In my mind, the ideal would be to choose books on the same topics but at three or four different reading/learning levels, so that the whole family could study the same topic at the same time. Then I would put together "manuals" for each level that had comprehension questions, coloring pages, lab activity instructions, web site suggestions, real-life application examples, a related literary "read aloud", and that sort of thing. And the lessons for each of the levels would be correlated so that a family with kids in different levels could still be studying the same general idea (obviously the older kids would spend more time on it and go into more depth).

 

I would prefer to use secular resources for science, since I find that most publications I've seen that try to mash science and religion together seem to "try a little too hard", and in my opinion wind up warping one or the other or both in the process when they're not willing to just say, "I don't know," or "there's not enough information". But I have mulled over the idea of creating an LDS "supplement" that might provide, say, a scripture that relates in some way, or a URL for (or text of, if it could be arranged inexpensively) a BYU devotional that relates, or some evaluative essay questions relating the topic to LDS issues, or whatever, for each lesson. I had also thought that if someone wanted to write a non-denom Christian supplement, a Catholic supplement, a Reformed supplement, or a Wiccan supplement, or whatever, we could also make those available, and people could "pick their poison" so to speak.

 

But it's a bigger project than I can manage with the other things going on in my life at present, so mostly I dabble and daydream while the opportunity slides away.

 

If it's something you're interested in, maybe we should get together over lunch and talk about it or something. (It was nice to meet you the other day.) And maybe we could rope some other people in to help with writing comprehension questions and instructions for labs and things like that. We'd also have to figure out publishing and distribution options and how to split proceeds and whatnot, but I know a lady who might be willing to help me set something up if we ever got to that point.

Edited August 6, 2012 by MamaSheep

[aprilleigh]

Here's what bothers me about the whole YE fad - it's not that I'm sure they are wrong (because I'm not SURE they are wrong), it's that every person I have met who holds it finds it so theologically necessary. As if God will hold it against us if we are scientifically mistaken. I find that scary.

 

I agree, absolutely! It's like the whole question of whether or not you're actually a Christian hinges on this one point. Seriously?! That's certainly not what I was taught, and I can't find it anywhere in the Bible either.