# Can we belive in...... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 21, 2001, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624 "2001-06-21T14:45:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2001, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624/21 "2001-06-22T06:48:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dolphinboy \* > **How can you have it both ways people? You can’t just infer that Adam and Eve were really one celled animals that eventually evolved into humans… since that’s not what the Bible says.** Some Christians think that Genesis is an allegory for the way the creation really happen, told in a way that nomadic shepherds 3,500 years could understand and remember. The actual details of creation are not the point of the first two chapters of Genesis. More important are man’s relationship with God, original sin, and all that jazz. Of course, that’s just what I hear. If you try doing a search on **Triskadecamus’s** or **Polycarp’s** posts on this subject in the past, I’m sure you’ll find a better explanation than the one that I gave. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2001, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624/22 "2001-06-22T06:49:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dolphinboy \* > \*\*Pick your poison… it’s either one or the other. Please don’t tell me that it’s all God’s love and doesn’t really matter anyway… because to some of us it does… \*\* OK, You win the argument. ## Tris “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” ~ Carl Jung ~ ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2001, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624/23 "2001-06-22T15:01:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dolphinboy \* > \*\*So we are to believe that God created Adam, and from his rib Eve, they lived in the Garden of Eden, and that we didn’t evolve from ape-like creatures millions of years ago? > > How can you have it both ways people? You can’t just infer that Adam and Eve were really one celled animals that eventually evolved into humans… since that’s not what the Bible says. > > Some people try and bend the Bible’s words around to make it sound like it’s the same thing as evolution… but it’s not the same thing at all. There is no credible evidence that there was ever an Adam or Eve… yet there is plenty of credible evidence that pre-humans roamed the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago… long before the Bible says the earth even existed! > > Pick your poison… it’s either one or the other. Please don’t tell me that it’s all God’s love and doesn’t really matter anyway… because to some of us it does… \*\* You are confusing (as do the fundies) creation and the Genesis story. Evolution and Genesis are incompatible (unless you look to Genesis as allegory). There is absolutely no incompatibility with evolution and the belief that a god created the universe. Quite frankly, if your “it’s one or the other” paradigm were true, than the large majority of Christians in the world, who believe in intelligent design (or at least the sects they adhere to proclaim that). Sua ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2001, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624/24 "2001-06-22T15:54:55Z")
**Sua** sed: > [@](#): > > Evolution and Genesis are incompatible (unless you look to Genesis as allegory). Absodamnlutely. And most Christians are content to accept Genesis as allegory–a story of the greatness of God the Creator and the fall of man from His grace. **dolphinboy** , I know they’re the most vocal, but Biblical literalists are very much _not_ the majority. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2001, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624/25 "2001-06-23T12:55:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Open your heart to God, and your mind to the world. [bowing… scraping… washing Tris’s feet…] ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2001, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624/26 "2001-06-26T05:24:40Z")
dolphinboy wrote: > [@](#): > > I don’t think you can really believe in both at the same time. That’s like saying I believe in cell mitosis and Unicorns… or the second law of thermodynamics and the lost civilization of Atlantis. I see nothing inherently contradictory about the existence of both cell mitosis and Unicorns. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2001, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624/27 "2001-06-26T13:12:37Z")
As a Deist, I believe God provided the push and a little vision, and then it happened… I have a little problem with ID arguements, not that that isn’t a good description for what I believe, but that they are sometimes used to put God into Science (and then God into Science into the Classroom). While I have FAITH that God provided push and vision, I don’t have a problem with astrophysics or evolutionary biology leaving God out – and would prefer it does so. I see little difference between teaching Creation Science and teaching ID. Its the difference between finding God in science and putting God there. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2001, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624/28 "2001-06-26T14:24:52Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Dr. Lao \* \*\* > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by nick112 \* > I agree with your OP, though. There is nothing conflicting between a belief in God and evolution. \*\* He didn’t say **belief in God and evolution** it was **evolution and creation**. Even though that is different it is still possible, in that one believes that God created everything through the process of evolution. However, it would be a stretch to accept as fact the story of Adam and Eve as portrayed in the bible and then say that evolution took over after that. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2001, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624/29 "2001-06-26T17:27:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kniz \* > \*\*He didn’t say **belief in God and evolution** it was **evolution and creation**. Even though that is different it is still possible, in that one believes that God created everything through the process of evolution. However, it would be a stretch to accept as fact the story of Adam and Eve as portrayed in the bible and then say that evolution took over after that. \*\* Creation doesn’t necessarily mean a literal retelling of Genesis. If God says, “Let there be a Big Bang,” and then has nothing to with the universe after that, then that is still creation. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2001, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624/30 "2001-06-28T05:54:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\*dolphinboy wrote: > > > [@](#): > > > > I don’t think you can really believe in both at the same time. That’s like saying I believe in cell mitosis and Unicorns… or the second law of thermodynamics and the lost civilization of Atlantis. > > I see nothing inherently contradictory about the existence of both cell mitosis and Unicorns. \*\* And I see nothing contradictory about the existance of both the second law of thermodynamics and the lost civilization of Atlantis. Just because there never was, in actual fact, a lost civilization of Atlantis does not mean that such a civilization, if it did actually exist, would have violated the second law of thermodynamics. Unless they powered their glowing crystals with perpetual motion machines or some such. But we can easily imagine a lost civilization of Atlantis that adheres to the laws of physics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-belive-in/69624.md?page=1)