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Goodbye Jesus

The Fact of Evolution?


areformedthinker

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If evolution could be proven without any doubt to be true, or if you like, evolution has been proven beyond any doubt. Does this necessitate that a Christian give up God, or simply adopt a view that God created via evolution?

 

This might belong in Debating Christians, if it does, then I am sorry for the mis-place.

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If evolution could be proven without any doubt to be true, or if you like, evolution has been proven beyond any doubt. Does this necessitate that a Christian give up God, or simply adopt a view that God created via evolution?

 

This might belong in Debating Christians, if it does, then I am sorry for the mis-place.

In my opinion it doesn't.

 

The last years of my Christianity I started to believe in Evolution, and that the old stories in the Bible were allegories of more spiritual guidance. The reason I lost my faith had nothing to do with the conflict of Genesis and Evolution or any of the stories.

 

Even if Abiogenesis were proven and Big Bang, still there's no need to loose faith in a supreme being. I wish the religious people would read the Bible, not as a literal historical book, but as a guide to how they should be and behave, and only the good parts (of course). When it says "love you neighbor", I wish more Christians actually did that, and meant it.

 

There's way too many Christians that rather believe in Genesis than in Jesus saying the Golden Rule. They rather hate their enemy and behave superior to other people in society, as long as they can keep the story of Noahs Ark alive.

 

It's sick I tell you. Jesus words mean less to many Christians, than the Old Testament and Pauls letters. Christians, if you want revival, then show TRUE mercy and love, don't just play-acting it and then shove myths and ideas down peoples throats. Live your testimony instead of shouting it!

 

I read somewhere that there was a tradition amongst the Jews when the OT was written, and it was called midrash (sp?). It meant that stories were intentionally made up to fit the modern times but describe some "spiritual truths". Very similar to Platos Dialogues, where it doesn't matter if the people in there existed for real or not, but if the message they convey have a meaning.

 

And this is how Philo interpreted the Old Testament.

 

Does it make sense?

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If evolution could be proven without any doubt to be true, or if you like, evolution has been proven beyond any doubt. Does this necessitate that a Christian give up God, or simply adopt a view that God created via evolution?

 

This might belong in Debating Christians, if it does, then I am sorry for the mis-place.

 

No one has to give up any beliefs.

 

If a person wants to retain their superstitions about some magical sky fairy that created it all - maybe even the christian magical sky fairy - as a way of explaining existence, while accepting evolution as fact, then they can go right ahead. Sorry if I offended the deists out there.

 

Though, if a christian wants to continue believing in the christian god, and accept evolution, then they have to ask themselves if the christian creation story must be a true and accurate representation of the beginning of life, in order to justify their belief. I'm sure some think it doesn't need to be.

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Though, if a christian wants to continue believing in the christian god, and accept evolution, then they have to ask themselves if the christian creation story must be a true and accurate representation of the beginning of life, in order to justify their belief.  I'm sure some think it doesn't need to be.

Plotinus, St Augustine and many other Christian philosophers were influenced by Philo. But Philo did NOT read the Bible (OT) litteraly, but saw it as an allegory for more sacred ideals. And Philo lived during the alleged time of Jesus! (30 BCE-45 CE)

 

Maybe the Christians + Gnostic were influenced by Philo. I think it is so. Because the hellenistic philosophers talked about "Logos", and that's how the gospel of John starts "in the beginning was Logos..."

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The occurrance of evolution is well documented by the continuity of the fossil record. Whether you consider the driving force to be random mutations or the driving hand of a superior being is up to you. I prefer the former explaination, but latter can certainly reconcile a belief in god with scientific observation. I've never really understood why so many xtians argued that it had to be creation OR evolution. Why can't evolution be the mechanism of creation?

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The occurrance of evolution is well documented by the continuity of the fossil record.  Whether you consider the driving force to be random mutations or the driving hand of a superior being is up to you.  I prefer the former explaination, but latter can certainly reconcile a belief in god with scientific observation.  I've never really understood why so many xtians argued that it had to be creation OR evolution.  Why can't evolution be the mechanism of creation?

I soooo totally agree. It bugs me to no end that for so many Christians, the genesis creation story has to be true for them to really believe.

 

Many years ago I worked as a high school teacher at a Christian school, and I believe in creationism (one of the cultic churches I belonged to), but one of the teachers, in science and math, he had connections and he traveled around to these observatories and stuff. He told me that Big Bang was real, and Evolution too, and I could not in my life comprehend that, until later, because the Bible had to be literally true word-by-word or (so I thought) I would loose my faith.

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If evolution could be proven without any doubt to be true,

 

It can't. Nothing outside pure math is without doubt. If you have an open mind, you will consider all the possibilities (although we tend not to waste time on the ones that seem outrageously unlikely).

 

Evolution is only in conflict with those who take the Genesis stories as if they were fact.

 

I suspect they actually were written intended as fact, by primitive men unskilled in critical thought, but theologically, you can view the Bible as revelation through myth, much like Paul seems to have, and like most modern Christians do.

 

It's really only the Biblical inerrantists who have a problem with evolution.

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Hrmmmm.... I would say that depends on how literally you take it to be. But then again, you might not be considered Christian if you don't take the Bible literally enough.

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If evolution could be proven without any doubt to be true, or if you like, evolution has been proven beyond any doubt.
It has. Much moreso than any creation story that's out there, anyway.

 

Does this necessitate that a Christian give up God,
No. What this "necessitates", is a group of Christians creating a fabricated branch of "Science" that has come to be known as "Intelligent Design".

 

or simply adopt a view that God created via evolution?
To embrace such an "idea", one would pretty much have to trash the entire theology. (see my second comment)
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If evolution could be proven without any doubt to be true, or if you like, evolution has been proven beyond any doubt. Does this necessitate that a Christian give up God, or simply adopt a view that God created via evolution?
Well, quite a few people go by the thinking that fundies are right for their interpretation of the Bible and moderates are not. I've kind of shyed away from that sort of thinking. Allegorical literature was quite common in those days, and there are a lot of clear signs of midrashing and redaction in both testaments. I don't think they'd think that they would have the right to do that if they were writing what they thought to be history.

 

I mean, my goodness, the Eve and the apple story is clearly a parallel to Pandora's box. Both stories are sort of imaginative tales about how mankind's curiosity and meddling ways tends to arouse trouble, but the stories make absolutely no sense if you take them literally. You don't really need a literal story of original sin to say that mankind falls short of moral pefection, in my opinion.

 

Another point is that the fundies really have to offer some strange interpretations of scripture to insist on strict literalism. The advantage of a nonliteral approach is that you can concentrate on trying to understand what the author (presumably God) is trying to say without this prejudiced approach that this must be historical. The main criticism of apologetics that comes from mainstream scholarship is, after all, that apologists tend to have a primary interest in establishing a inerrantist interpretation and only a secondardy interest in context.

 

I would say no, you don't have to abandon God to accept evolution. Yes, it is a "godless" concept, but it's godless in the same sense that chemistry or math are godless. These things don't need an appeal to divine authority to explain. In fact, they begin to look rather strange if you try to do that.

 

The thing you have to remember about evolution and creation is that evolution is just one naturalistic process among many. Even when I was a theist, I saw evolution as just one of the many processes in God's universe. It never once occurred to me that things like evolution or planetary system developement were really a problem for this deity. Even today, when creationists try to use that as an argument, I shoot it down as a false dichotomy.

 

My abandoning of theology had absolutely nothing to do with science, but that's another topic. So no, you don't have to give up faith to accept scientific principles that other more radical theists find offensive. It's just not necessary.

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It depends what the particular tenets of faith are that one believes necessary for Christianity.

 

Whatever the case, faith must yield to knowledge.

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How can it be that Philo in 25 CE wrote that Genesis was only an allegory, and here we are 2000 years later and still argue about if the story is literal or allegorical!

 

Christianity, Gnostics, Catholic philosopers were influenced strongly by Philo, and yet we now have people denying the roots of the religion? Should we doubt Philo about the genesis, then lets doubt the rest too, and then the religion becomes moot.

 

Actually in my opinion now is that if you decide to believe genesis literally, you deny your philosophical and religious roots, and hence deny your religion. But if you accept your religion, you have to accept Genesis to be allegorical.

 

As Christian, you're more obligated to believe Genesis and Creationism as an allegory and myth, not the other way around.

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How can it be that Philo in 25 CE wrote that Genesis was only an allegory, and here we are 2000 years later and still argue about if the story is literal or allegorical!
I don't know. Quite frankly, I find it embarrassing that we split the atom and put a man on the moon all those decades ago, but here we are in the 21st century, and yet look at us now. It's like the two eras are backwards.

 

You've got these extreme right wing nut jobs trying to tear down the core principle of the science of genetics. Next thing you know, you'll have these same nuts trying to tell us that the moon landing didn't happen.

 

Oh wait...

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You've got these extreme right wing nut jobs trying to tear down the core principle of the science of genetics.  Next thing you know, you'll have these same nuts trying to tell us that the moon landing didn't happen.

 

Oh wait...

Or earth being flat , hollow and the center of the star system.

And of course humans the center of everything.

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Or earth being flat , hollow and the center of the star system.

And of course humans the center of everything.

 

My oldest brother believes that the Earth is hollow and that there is another civilization of Humans that live in there. :mellow:

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My oldest brother believes that the Earth is hollow and that there is another civilization of Humans that live in there. :mellow:

Yikes! The hollow men. :ugh:

 

Have he ever seen one? And what does he base his assumption on?

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Yikes! The hollow men.  :ugh:

 

Have he ever seen one?

No.

 

And what does he base his assumption on?
Belief.

 

 

Don't forget now, this is the same guy who, after watching the Stargate SG-1 series, has convinced himself that Noah used something like a stargate (as portrayed in the series) to teleport all of the animals off of the planet before The Great Flood™ that is depicted in the bible. :mellow:

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Don't forget now, this is the same guy who, after watching the Stargate SG-1 series, has convinced himself that Noah used something like a stargate (as portrayed in the series) to teleport all of the animals off of the planet before The Great Flood™ that is depicted in the bible. :mellow:

:twitch:

 

That's a nice idea though. Hehe.

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Believe it or not, that's not the first time I've heard that.

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Oh dear, oh dear... If it wasn't enough with the religions and beliefs we have, people are adding on to the burden by inventing new ones.

 

Fighting superstition is an uphill battle.

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Believe it or not, that's not the first time I've heard that.

 

I've heard other versions of The Truth™ too. :ugh:

 

Instead of recognizing the bible story for the impossible piece of shit that it actually is, they try to come up with anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to give it even the slightest sense/feeling of possibility no matter how ridiculous it sounds.

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Oh dear, oh dear... If it wasn't enough with the religions and beliefs we have, people are adding on to the burden by inventing new ones.

 

Superstition is an uphill battle.

 

Are you talking about the Stargate thing, or the hollow Earth story?

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Ask him what they look like.  donuts to dollars they're reptilian.
Ahh! I see you've read up/in on/to that shit at some point too, eh? :scratch:
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Ask him what they look like.  donuts to dollars they're reptilian.

Geez, that reminds me of "V". What a joke that series was. (Sorry for the hijack)

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