Theistic Evolution - Page 2

[Kidzaplenty]

Have you ever seen "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"?

I just recently watched it, and it was an absolute eye opener. It is not about Christianity. And I was absolutely shocked to hear the evolutionist admit that real belief in evolution will destroy your belief in a god.

If you have not seen it, check it out.

I believe the new "theistic evolution" is just the enemy's way of introducing evolution into Christian theology and make it sound good. It is desensitizing our children the same way violent games are desensitzing them to violence.

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by Kidzaplenty

Have you ever seen "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"?

I haven't; I'll have to see if I can access it.

I just recently watched it, and it was an absolute eye opener. It is not about Christianity. And I was absolutely shocked to hear the evolutionist admit that real belief in evolution will destroy your belief in a god.

I think the big difference between evolution and creation science, is that there are people from all belief-systems who accept evolutionary theory, but it is just religious people who accept creation science. So of course you're going to run into some evolutionists who are such staunch atheists that they don't see how anyone can consider "the facts" and still believe in God.

Just as many of us believers don't see how anyone can consider the facts, and the beauty of God's creation, and not believe.

It's true that there are probably lots of scientists who are atheists. Believe it or not, I think it is primarily the Church that is to blame for this. Throughout history, it seems that powerful branches of the Church have always been ready and eager to dismiss new discoveries as "heresies."

So I think people with the most intelligent, enquiring minds have often felt compelled to choose between God and the pursuit of truth. Which is sad because God is truth, He created the spirit of scientific inquiry, He wants us to use our minds and to not be afraid to question. But many church leaders want to keep people afraid, it gives them more power.

If you have not seen it, check it out.

Okay.

I believe the new "theistic evolution" is just the enemy's way of introducing evolution into Christian theology and make it sound good. It is desensitizing our children the same way violent games are desensitzing them to violence.

Well, for the man whose site I linked to, theistic evolution is his path to living a life of integrity. He got so saddened seeing creation scientists attacking evolutionists by misrepresenting their statements. I've been saddened, too.

For example, at a church music presentation a while back, a member of the traveling singing group (student of a Christian college), led into a song by explaining evolutionary theory as "It's where this ape is walking along and then he suddenly turns into a man."

It seems that in many Christian circles, it's acceptable to attack evolution with total stupidity. So, as far as the "no intelligence allowed"-thingy, I feel I've encountered that attitude lots of times in Christian circles. But I still will check out the movie. Thanks for letting me know about it, Jenny.

[sugarbeth]

Originally Posted by Kidzaplenty

I believe the new "theistic evolution" is just the enemy's way of introducing evolution into Christian theology and make it sound good. It is desensitizing our children the same way violent games are desensitzing them to violence.

Ok, I'll bite. Who is the "enemy"?

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by sugarbeth

Ok, I'll bite. Who is the "enemy"?

Even my heathen, Jewish behind knows this one. The enemy is none other than The DEVIL, Satan himself. Everything bad comes from Satan, remember? (No, I'm not being sarcastic... I'm being totally serious.)

[mammal_mama]

The reason it's so hard for me to see evolution as coming from the enemy, is that the more I study it, the closer I feel to my Creator.

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by Kidzaplenty

Have you ever seen "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"?

I just recently watched it, and it was an absolute eye opener. It is not about Christianity. And I was absolutely shocked to hear the evolutionist admit that real belief in evolution will destroy your belief in a god.

So far I haven't purchased the movie. From what I've read about it, it sounds like they're saying that the schools are suppressing free discussion, and discouraging critical thinking (duh, that's why dh and I are homeschooling our own kids ... and since many churches also are like this, we're also exercising caution about where we get involved).

As far as suppressing the other point of view, I feel like that's exactly what would happen if I attended a fundamentalist Bible Study on Genesis, and shared my current views. Maybe the public schools "should" be more supportive of open debate than we'd expect the Church to be -- but I don't know. I kind of wish that for once the Church would lead the way, and be the promoter of free discussion that it apparently thinks the school system should be.

And as to the assertion that some evolutionist was quoted as saying that real belief in evolution will destroy a person's belief in God -- maybe we all have different ways of defining "real belief." My ever-expanding views on how God made the world, are not "real belief," in the sense of being comparable to my faith in God Himself.

But even my faith in God is based on the knowledge that "now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face." I agree with Madeleine L'Engle that we are all in for big surprises when we see the whole picture in Heaven.

[Leta]

Psst... hey there, OP, I'm right here with you. I think evolution is just part of God's plan.

Carry on.

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by FormerlyKnownAs

Psst... hey there, OP, I'm right here with you. I think evolution is just part of God's plan.

Carry on.

Thanks!

I see it as nothing short of wondrous, that God chose to do things in such a way that some could actually think it was "random chance" --

Which, again, the man I linked to defines as "I don't know" how this or that process really happened ... I'm paraphrasing here, but suffice it to say "random chance" doesn't really mean no God, it just means it's beyond our ability to figure some things out.

He explains this way better than I can.

[sugarbeth]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

Even my heathen, Jewish behind knows this one. The enemy is none other than The DEVIL, Satan himself. Everything bad comes from Satan, remember? (No, I'm not being sarcastic... I'm being totally serious.)

Whew! I was worried the "enemy" was going to be biologists! You're reminding me of these t-shirts:
http://controversy.wearscience.com/design/devil/

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by sugarbeth

Whew! I was worried the "enemy" was going to be biologists! You're reminding me of these t-shirts:
http://controversy.wearscience.com/design/devil/

I love those shirts!

[mammal_mama]

By the way, are there creation scientists who actually say there never were any dinosaurs?

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by mammal_mama

By the way, are there creation scientists who actually say there never were any dinosaurs?

If there can be said to be "creation scientists," then yes there are, but very few. Mostly, though, they believe that carbon dating is a fraud perpetrated by the devil. If dinosaurs existed, they clearly did so in the garden of creation along with humans and all the other critters about 6000 years ago.

[Kidzaplenty]

Most (really all) creationists that I know understand there were dinosaurs, we just don't believe in the millions of years theory. And although I believe carbon dating is an inaccurate science (though I don't have the explanation at the tip of my tongue) we don't believe it is necessarily "of the devil" (carbon dating, that is), just flawed when it comes to such "distances" in time.

[mammal_mama]

I think most evolutionists recognize there are limitations to carbon-dating, just as there are limitations to all measurement-methods. So they draw from as many different disciplines as they can, to get as accurate a picture as they can.

One thing the guy with the theistic evolution site mentions, is that there are many different disciplines that support Darwin's theories -- biology is just one of those disciplines.

So there's really not a reliance on just one method, or just one discipline.

[mammal_mama]

One thing I don't understand, are the dire warning from many creation scientists, that if you accept Darwin's theories, it's all downhill from there, and you're going to lose your faith.

To me, God's reality is not so fragile that it can be undermined by new scientific discoveries, or new understandings of life as we know it. With this in mind, the creation-scientists' fear-mongering seems every bit as silly and stifling as the Church's persecution of Galileo for asserting that the earth was round and not flat.

[Bluegoat]

Originally Posted by Kidzaplenty

Have you ever seen "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"?

I And I was absolutely shocked to hear the evolutionist admit that real belief in evolution will destroy your belief in a god.

Just because the man was a scientist doesn't man that he was an expert on theology or people's religious faith experiences. He sounds like a bit of a dunce to me. In fact, I think we can say, empirically, that he is wrong. Lots of people accept evolution as a very good theory and still have religious faith.

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by mammal_mama

One thing I don't understand, are the dire warning from many creation scientists, that if you accept Darwin's theories, it's all downhill from there, and you're going to lose your faith.

To me, God's reality is not so fragile that it can be undermined by new scientific discoveries, or new understandings of life as we know it. With this in mind, the creation-scientists' fear-mongering seems every bit as silly and stifling as the Church's persecution of Galileo for asserting that the earth was round and not flat.

Kudos to you, mammal_mama. This is something I've wondered about myself. Mike's sister, for example, refused to watch a 30 minute special on The History Channel because she felt that it would shake her faith. My thought was, "If my faith was so fragile that I thought 30 minutes of television would disturb it, I'd have to seriously reconsider my faith." I've always thought it was kind of sad-- if your faith is that weak, why bother with it at all? Most Christians I've encountered have not been able to explain, writing it all off as "God's will" or some such. Good for you.

[mammal_mama]

Over the last few years, I've been realizing how fear-based fundamentalist theology really is. And I used to get my back up when I'd hear others label my brand of Christianity "fear-based."

But when I started thinking more critically, I realized there was a real push (at least in my denomination) to get people to hold back from really exploring new ideas, literature, and various media for ourselves.

There was always the danger that we could get "deceived," and believing any kind of error was seen as a fate worse than death. Even if it seems like a small, inconsequential error, it might just be that little marble you slip on, that sends you hurtling down the cliff into hell.

I recall hearing a conversation between two women in my former church. They were both agreeing that they could always tell whether someone else was spirit-filled, because spirit-filled people were always bugged by the same movies they were. If someone couldn't see anything wrong with a particular movie these women didn't like, that just meant that other person hadn't "arrived" yet.

In contrast, evolutionists aren't saying that a belief in creation science will send you to hell -- they're just saying (I think) that it closes you off to being able to understand some things. I realize there are probably "hard-liners" on both sides of the debate. I just really, really prefer the side that at least encourages people to explore and do genuine critical thinking, without throwing the wrench in there that "you'll go to hell if you don't come to the right conclusion!"

The more I grow and age, the more I realize how impossible it is not to believe some error. We try out our various hypothesis about life, and pretty much learn from our mistakes. Or at least, that's how it seems to happen for me a lot of the time.

It's been so wonderful for me to realize that it was never God telling me I had to live in fear of exploration and making mistakes. I feel like all these years, God's been calling me out to roam in the great big world -- and here I thought some mean stable-boy was God. It's time to fire the stable-boy and worship the Lord.

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by mammal_mama

The more I grow and age, the more I realize how impossible it is not to believe some error.

I like to refer to this as, "The Human Condition."

[Leta]

Originally Posted by mammal_mama

To me, God's reality is not so fragile that it can be undermined by new scientific discoveries, or new understandings of life as we know it.

Oh, hear, hear!

To me, evolution is just obvious. (I admit, I say this from a position of privilege, as I have had higher education, mostly in science.) Just the same, the presence of God, at least in my life, is at least as obvious as evolution.

And I can accept neither science or dogma that basically says, "What are you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?"