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Does teaching evolution harm Christianity?
- Thread starter Phillip
- Start date
Gold Dragon
Well-Known Member
So, explain how we study the part about God's Son coming to Earth to atone for our sins----from strictly a natural perspective. </font>[/QUOTE]I'm talking about the natural world that God created.
Many of those things in your request are not things in the natural world that God created in the sense that they are not things we can describe with our five senses.
1) God
2) coming to earth from heaven
3) atonement
4) sins
They are metaphysical, spiritual or philosophical concepts. That doesn't make them any less true.
The natural world is only part of what God created and part of what is truth. Science is good at describing this part of God's creation. But is not good at the metaphysical whys.
Without the first chapters of Genesis, the rest of the Bible falls apart. If evolution is accepted, then there is no need for God; the creation story falls apart because it doesn't line up with evolution, man did not fall because man is "basically good"; and no saviour is needed. Thus, Jesus wasn't God; his sacrifice was in vain, he was either deluted or a liar, and those who follow Jesus are either deluted or liars. Evolution and Christianity just don't work. One's right or the other is.
I've been studying secular studies for a few years now and I'll just tell you, evolution is the foundation for a world without any God. Also, evolution is rather faulty and that's why many people are turning to I.D. I'm not just saying this because I want it to be true, but it is true.
Now that I've said that, I would like to point out that natural selection is acceptable. Evolution requires natural selection to add genetic information and further species. However, when natural selection is observed, it only takes away genetic information to further a species. So the animal will never evolve, only adapt to a given enviroment. That's why God said for everything to reproduce after its own kind.
For more information, visit: Answersingenesis.org
I'm sure it can explain this better than I can in 10 minutes. But please remember that evolution only destroys Christianity and if you accept it, you have to pick apart the Bible until it doesn't make sense anymore and it is only another sacred text.
-David
I've been studying secular studies for a few years now and I'll just tell you, evolution is the foundation for a world without any God. Also, evolution is rather faulty and that's why many people are turning to I.D. I'm not just saying this because I want it to be true, but it is true.
Now that I've said that, I would like to point out that natural selection is acceptable. Evolution requires natural selection to add genetic information and further species. However, when natural selection is observed, it only takes away genetic information to further a species. So the animal will never evolve, only adapt to a given enviroment. That's why God said for everything to reproduce after its own kind.
For more information, visit: Answersingenesis.org
I'm sure it can explain this better than I can in 10 minutes. But please remember that evolution only destroys Christianity and if you accept it, you have to pick apart the Bible until it doesn't make sense anymore and it is only another sacred text.
-David
Gold Dragon
Well-Known Member
Not at all. Is it the fault of a doctor that he can't fix a car? Is it the fault of Calvinism that it can't provide an answer for the paint colour on your church walls? Science has a specific function. Trying to make it do things outside that function (making statements about the metaphysical or assuming metaphysical sources) is an abuse of science.
Non-physical variables are not scientific variables. That doesn't mean they aren't true. It just means they are beyond the realm of science. Love is something that scientists have tried to describe and understand scientifically. They can only go as far as what is observable with our senses. Beyond that, it is the realm of poets.
It isn't a possibility that science comes to the wrong conclusions. It is an absolute truth that science comes to the wrong conclusions. Science is always wrong but its conclusions are better than the previously wrong conclusions and eventually will arrive at better wrong conclusions. This is all in pursuit of the truth of the physical world God created, even if scientists don't believe that it is God who did the creating.
I humbly disagree, Gold Dragon.
Just because something cannot be explained through natural methods does not mean that science cannot deal with it.
Is science not allowed to make an assumption that something exists that we cannot see, touch, feel, smell or taste?
Your remark about a doctor cannot fix a car has nothing to do with the fact that some people are limiting science to the physical boundaries that we currently have right now, in the 21st century. Let us assume that some day we are capable of entering another dimension, one in which spiritual beings exist. Does this mean that all old science is thrown out? Yes, if you make the assumptions that you are.
You are the one limiting science to natural explanations. Not the definition of science itself. AND, if science itself restricts itself to that definition, then why would you want to be a scientist when you personally, as a Christian, know that the spiritual, supernatural, does exist and that science does NOT allow for those variables?
Just because the definition of science, or the secular world restricts it does not mean that the Christian has to limit his world to the physical.
Just because something cannot be explained through natural methods does not mean that science cannot deal with it.
Is science not allowed to make an assumption that something exists that we cannot see, touch, feel, smell or taste?
Your remark about a doctor cannot fix a car has nothing to do with the fact that some people are limiting science to the physical boundaries that we currently have right now, in the 21st century. Let us assume that some day we are capable of entering another dimension, one in which spiritual beings exist. Does this mean that all old science is thrown out? Yes, if you make the assumptions that you are.
You are the one limiting science to natural explanations. Not the definition of science itself. AND, if science itself restricts itself to that definition, then why would you want to be a scientist when you personally, as a Christian, know that the spiritual, supernatural, does exist and that science does NOT allow for those variables?
Just because the definition of science, or the secular world restricts it does not mean that the Christian has to limit his world to the physical.
Gold Dragon
Well-Known Member
If we can physically enter this other dimension, we would be making physical observations. Still scientific. And the science in our dimension probably would get thrown out when in this other dimension. It would of course still apply in our original dimension.
Science is good at explaining the natural and not good at explaining the supernatural. Good scientists recognize that there are things outside of the scope of science. Pure naturalists would say that the natural is all there is. While you have to make naturalistic assumptions to perform science, you don't have be a pure naturalist and say that science is all there is.
I definitely don't limit God's world to the physical. There is much beyond the physical. Science limits itself to being able to describe the physical aspects of that world God created.
Gold Dragon
Well-Known Member
Correct. You cannot perform experiments and collect data on things you cannot sense with your five senses, either directly or indirectly (which is how science is often performed).
You can make statements about those things that may be true. They simply would not be scientific statements. Just because something is not scientific doesn't mean it isn't true.
I love my wife. That is not a scientific statement, but it is most definitely the truth.
I have to agree with your last post. I didn't mean to say that science could measure something that was not measurable.
Okay, so let me understand what YOU believe. Do you believe that man evolved from other animals and was given a soul after a certain point? How does man differ from animals as far as your religious beliefs?
Just curious.
Okay, so let me understand what YOU believe. Do you believe that man evolved from other animals and was given a soul after a certain point? How does man differ from animals as far as your religious beliefs?
Just curious.
Genesis is not an eyewitness account. The writer of Genesis was not present. </font>[/QUOTE]The writer? No. The "writer" was probably Moses.
The Author however was present... and we might be reminded that the writer spents significant time in direct interaction with the Author. The Author gave the writer explicit details on a number of subjects. I have yet to see anyone here try to say that the construction specs of the tabernacle or manners of sacrifice were allegory.
It's only when God does something demonstrating that He isn't such a one as we are that people start handwaving and looking for some other explanation.
Gold Dragon
Well-Known Member
This is what I've been saying all along.
Maybe, maybe not. The evidence from our genetic and physical structures definitely suggests some common ancestry. But natural selection may not account for all of them.
Either way, man was created in God's image as stated in the bible, since God is not a physical being and his image is not a physical thing.
Man is definitely given a soul. Whether it was something given to Adam and passed through to his off-spring or something that God gives to each individual human, I do not know.
Man was specifically created in God's image which is not a statement about our physical bodies but to indicate a unique spiritual relationship with God among all of creation.
Correct. You cannot perform experiments and collect data on things you cannot sense with your five senses, either directly or indirectly (which is how science is often performed).</font>[/QUOTE] Actually that is not true. You can measure the effects of things that you cannot sense. One example is behavior. Another is emotion.
A third would be the difference between the mind and the brain. "The Case for a Creator" cites studies being performed that use among other things the awareness that "near death" people report having.
One problem for evolution is that history falls into this same category. You cannot sense history directly with your five senses.
You have bought into the notion that "science" is limited by naturalism rather than the organized pursuit of truth. I don't.
It is every bit as much a science as many of the claims made by evolution. We can directly study the "effects" of what you do and make inferences about your relationship.
BTW, there are evolutionary scientists that disagree with you as well. They have gotten funds to study things like the evolution of love and other emotions. They would argue that ultimately your statement had a naturalistic rather than spiritual origin and therefore falls under the venue of science.
Gold Dragon
Well-Known Member
It has always been my opinion that God's Word is the "witness" of God through humans who were not always eye-witnesses of those accounts they wrote. I think it is awesome that God included humans in the writing of his sacred scriptures and didn't simply drop it from the sky.
Maybe, maybe not. The evidence from our genetic and physical structures definitely suggests some common ancestry. </font>[/QUOTE]No it doesn't. The evidence reveals commonalities. That's all. It doesn't "suggest" anything.
It is only when interpretted with a presupposition of evolution that it "suggests" common ancestory.
Gold Dragon
Well-Known Member
Most definitely. And those effects, being things you can sense, can be accurately measured whether the source is natural or supernatural.
How would you measure behaviour and emotion without using your five senses? Can you measure anger? You can measure heart rate, voice volume and flushing of the skin associated with anger. But you can't measure anger.
Gold Dragon
Well-Known Member
You missed my reference of indirect observation. This is how much of science is done. Nobody has ever seen electrons directly. They may really be little spiritual beings that are mimicing the behaviour of what we understand to be electrons. But indirectly we have observed their effects and concluded certain properties that we have associated with the concept of the electron.
Most definitely. And those effects, being things you can sense, can be accurately measured whether the source is natural or supernatural.
How would you measure behaviour and emotion without using your five senses? Can you measure anger? You can measure heart rate, voice volume and flushing of the skin associated with anger. But you can't measure anger. </font>[/QUOTE]Actually, brain scans can show certain portions of the brain become active when emotional feelings occur. This is a well known and studied field now.
Gold Dragon
Well-Known Member
Yes it may be a scientific statement that I make x number of compliments to my wife. Give her y number of massages per week. Take her out on dates z number of times. These effects are measurable. But I could do all these things and not love my wife. You cannot measure my love.
Same with nature. There are many physical things in God's creation we can measure and observe and test. But one thing we cannot measure is whether God did it. That doesn't mean he did or didn't, it just means we can't measure it. By faith I believe he did.