Because it was adopted by the Romans and they spread it across Europe and then the rest of the world. Converting foreign peoples to the Bible was one of the big reasons for exploring and colonizing the rest of the world. It was for their own good, of course. :rolleyes:
Because He works in mysterious ways, natch. 
…Hey, if Christians can use that reasoning to explain away pain, suffering, and evil, I can certainly advance it in the reconcilement of religious doctrine and evolution!
Doesn’t bother me. When someone calls me a monkey I just say, “Oh no, you’re confusing me with my cousins.”
Notice in the Genesis account that the exact method(s) used to create life forms other than man are deliberately left blank. It was God commanding “Let them be”, and life happened. No context of the time it took, other than the multi-interpreted “Day”. I happen to think that this “Day” refers to a cycle consisting of a very extensive period of activity (Day), which is more likely millions of years in length, followed by a period of stopping, observing, and reflecting on what happened (Night).
Then the account goes on to say that He made man, “male and female he created them.” Then it goes on to the way Adam was created, out of ‘clay’. Was it better for Moses to write ‘clay’ for those who would immediately read this account, rather than ‘primordal soup’? Yes, the concepts in Judeo-Christianity can be compatible to the theories of evolution.
Thomas Paine wrote quite a lot about the book of Genesis, and quotes much from Jewish and Christian scholars to support his beliefs. Long story short: The creation story in Genesis is most likely “borrowed” from Persian mythology and ancient Jews and Christians alike didn’t take it literally so why they insist on doing it now is a mystery.
Short story shorter, see The Age of Reason, parts 1 and 2, and the Answer to Bishop Llandaff.
Short story long again (from the “Answer”):
This chapter gives an account of what is called the ‘fall of Man,’ which is no other than a fable borrowed from, and constructed upon, the religious allegory of Zoroaster, or the Persians, of the annual progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the Zodiac. It is the fall of the Year, the approach and evil of winter, announced by the ascension of the autumnal constellation of the serpent of the Zodiac, and not the moral fall of man, that is the key of the allegory, and of the fable in Genesis borrowed from it.
The Fall of Man in Genesis is said to have been produced by eating a certain fruit, generally taken to be an apple. The fall of the year is the season for the gathering and eating the new apples of that year. The allegory, therefore, holds with respect to the fruit, which it would not have done had it been an early summer fruit. It holds also with respect to place. The tree is said to have been placed in the midst of the garden. But why in the midst of the garden more than in any other place? The solution of the allegory gives the answer to this question, which is, that the fall of the year, when apples and other autumnal fruits are ripe, and when days and nights are of equal length, is the mid-season between summer and winter.
It holds also with respect to clothing, and the temperature of the air. It is said in Genesis (iii. 21), “Unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” But why are coats of skins mentioned? This cannot be understood as referring to anything of the nature of moral evil. The solution of the allegory gives again the answer to this question, which is, that the evil of winter, which follows the fall of the year, fabulously called in Genesis the fall of man, makes warm clothing necessary.
But be the author of Genesis whoever it may, there is abundant evidence to show, as well from the early Christian writers as from the Jews themselves, that the things stated in that book were not believed to be facts. Why they have been believed as facts since that time, when better and fuller knowledge existed on the case than is known now, can be accounted for only on the imposition of priestcraft.
Augustine, one of the early champions of the Christian church, acknowledges in his ‘City of God’ that the adventure of Eve and the serpent, and the account of Paradise, were generally considered as fiction or allegory. He regards them as allegory himself, without attempting to give any explanation, but he supposes that a better explanation might be found than those that had been offered.
Origen, another early champion of the church, says, “What man of good sense can ever persuade himself that there were a first, a second, and a third day, and that each of these days had a night when there were yet neither sun, moon, nor stars? What man can be stupid enough to believe that God, acting the part of a gardener, had planted a garden in the east, that the tree of life was a real tree, and that its fruit had the virtue of making those who eat of it live forever?”
Maimonides, one of the most learned and celebrated of the Jewish Robbins, who lived in the eleventh century (about seven or eight hundred years ago) and to whom the bishop refers in his answer to me, is very explicit in his book entitled ‘Moreh Nebuchim,’ upon the non-reality of the things stated in the account of the Creation in the book of Genesis.
“We ought not (says he) to understand, nor take according to the letter, that which is written in the book of the creation, nor to have the same ideas of it which common men have; otherwise our ancient sages would not have recommended with so much care to conceal the sense of it, and not to raise the allegorical veil which envelopes the truths it contains. The book of Genesis, taken according to the letter, gives the most absurd and the most extravagant ideas of the divinity. Whoever shall find out the sense of it, ought to restrain himself from divulging it. It is a maxim which all our sages repeat, and above all with respect to the work of six days. It may happen that some one, with the aid he may borrow from others, may hit upon the meaning of it. In that case he ought to impose silence upon himself; or if he speak of it, he ought to speak obscurely, and in an enigmatical manner, as I do myself, leaving the rest to be found out by those who can understand me.”
This is, certainly, a very extraordinary declaration of Mairnonides taking all the parts of it. First, be declares, that the account of the Creation in the book of Genesis is not a fact, and that to believe it to be a fact gives the most absurd and the most extravagant ideas of the divinity. Secondly, that it is an allegory. Thirdly, that the allegory has a concealed secret. Fourthly, that whoever can find the secret ought not to tell it.
It is this last part that is the most extraordinary. Why all this care of the Jewish Robbins, to prevent what they call the concealed meaning, or the secret, from being known, and if known to prevent any of their people from telling it? It certainly must be something which the Jewish nation are afraid or ashamed the world should know. It must be something personal to them as a people, and not a secret of a divine nature, which the more it is known the more it increases the glory of the creator, and the gratitude and happiness of man. It is not God’s secret but their own they are keeping. I go to unveil the secret.
The case is, the Jews have stolen their cosmogony, that is, their account of the creation, from the cosmogony of the Persians, contained in the books of Zoroaster, the Persian law- giver, and brought it with them when they returned from captivity by the benevolence of Cyrus, king of Persia. For it is evident, from the silence of all the books of the bible upon the subject of the creation, that the Jews had no cosmogony before that time. If they had a cosmogony from the time of Moses, some of their judges who governed during more than four hundred years, or of their kings, the Davids and Solomons of their day, who governed nearly five hundred years, or of their prophets and psalmists, who lived in the mean time, would have mentioned it. It would, either as fact or fable, have been the grandest of all subjects for a psalm. It would have suited to a tittle the ranting poetical genius of Isaiah, or served as a cordial to the gloomy Jeremiah. But not one word, not even a whisper, does any of the bible authors give upon the subject.
To conceal the theft, the Robbins of the second temple have published Genesis as a book of Moses, and have enjoined secrecy to all their people, who by travelling or otherwise might happen to discover from whence the cosmogony was borrowed, not to tell it. The evidence of circumstances is often unanswerable, and there is no other than this which I have given that goes to the whole of the case, and this does.
Disgenes Laertius, an ancient and respectable author, whom the bishop in his answer to me quotes on another occasion, has a passage that corresponds with the solution here given. In speaking of the religion of the Persians as promulgated by their priests or magi, he says the Jewish Robbins were the successors of their doctrine. Having thus spoken on the plagiarism, and on the non-reality of the book of Genesis, I will give some additional evidence that Moses is not the author of that book.
Aben-Ezra, a celebrated Jewish author, who lived about seven hundred years ago, and whom the bishop allows to have been a man of great erudition, has made a great many observations, too numerous to be repeated here, to show that Moses was not, and could not be, the author of the book of Genesis, nor of any of the five books that bear his name.
Spinoza, another learned Jew, who lived about a hundred and thirty years ago, recites, in his treatise on the ceremonies of the Jews, ancient and modern, the observations of Aben-Ezra, to which he adds many others, to shew that Moses is not the author of those books. He also says, and shews his reasons for saying it, that the bible did not exist as a book till the time of the Maccabees, which was more than a hundred years after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity.
hardcore:
HA, ha. Aren’t you supposed to be at work or something??? C’mon, now, you got tuition to pay!!!
(PS) FYI, I got out of class @ 10. So :p!!!
And while I have your attention, I don’t get my 1st paycheck till next Thursday…hint hint
The Romans spread Christianity across the world? In 1492, Ceasar sailed the ocean blue?
Romans did not quite do that. What happened was that after a period of persecuted, Christians became powerful through works of charity performed throughout the Empire. Through charity, Christianity gained influence, until it reached the Senate and the Caesar’s families. When Constantine established Christianity as the official religion, in 302 CE, a late period in the history of the Roman Empire, the influence has become complete.
Freyer:
This is pretty much what I like to believe. God was condicting “research and development” over the course of evolution, testing out simple life forms in the terrestrial environment before going on to develop new, improved designs. Divine intervention was needed only to program the incremental genetic mutations to cause a localized population to evolve the new innovations (this would explain punctuated equillibrium).
Danielinthewolvesden:
But every creature that has a brain has a soul. Your soul is the contents of your brain, your software. The human soul is more complex than that of other animals because our brains are more complex.
In regards to capacitor’s post, I don’t think you should underestimate the effect of the martyr cult that developed in Christianity. Martyrs exerted a powerful influence both to reinforce the belief of the Soldiers of Christ and to demonstrate to the nonsoldiers ( the pagans ) that the new cult, though small and scorned, had power. Also, while Christianity was undeniably boosted by Constantine’s designation of it as the official religion it was not inevitable that it would continue to flourish. Remember the pagan Emperor Julian the Apostate?
In regards to the OP, religions have the ability to change their axioms and interpretations to fit the times ( as a look at the reign of Constantine demonstrates ).
That is what makes them so perfidious.
Er… that last word was supposed to read “persistent”.
From reading the the above responses, it appears to me that most seems to have a different interpretation of evolution then I do. So let me clarify my OP a little.
My definition of evolution is not the change of species into another, but rather a specific method in which they change. Likewise, the evolution is strickly a biological phenomema that can not be applied to anything that does not pass on hereditary traits (via DNA/RNA), thus the universe does not evolve. The specific method in which evolution works is through random mutation, natural selection, and it is most definately non-directed. If any of these conditions are not met, then it is not evolution. It is from this definition that I find evolution and Christianity not to be compatible.
As some have written on this board, some people seem to believe that evolution has been directed by God. But seeing that evolution is a non-directed event by definition, how can the two be compatible. It would seen to me that the a directed change of species over time is more compatiable with Intelligent Design theory and not Evolutionary theory.
Hope this helps clarify my original OP.
Sorry about that. I was in a hurry and got sloppy. I should’ve written: “It was adopted by the Romans and they spread it across Europe. The European nations that succeeded the Holy Roman Empire then spread it to the rest of the world.”
Ok,
Let me restate that my knowledge of evolution ends with my HS and 1st year biology in college.
Plus I know the forming of the planets is not evolution but this area is part of creationism.
What I am saying is to stand back and not look at the trees but look at the forrest. Look at the broad view of the history of universe and it has some similarites to the story of creation in the bible. Don’t worry about the terms like abiogenisis or that a trilobyte is not a fish.
Did life first start in the ocean? Is that where the bible has God putting the first life?
Did then life move to land? (in general terms) Plants then animals? Is that the way it goes in the bible?
Is man (basically) the latest creature to evolve? ( I know everything is still evolving) Is man the last thing God makes?
Lets suppose you are God. And it’s a really long time ago and you made the universe. The way you made the universe is the exactly the scientific process you described. (basically you wrote all the natural laws and then created the matter and let gravity et al do the rest) Now men have evolved and they are wondering about you. They haven’t even invented the printing press yet but you still want to inform them about how great you are. So do you sit down and lecture them about abiogensis and trilobytes? Do you tell them about the dinosaurs? Or do you follow the kiss rule?
Man’s social development being in its infancy God treats them likes children and tells them the simplified version.
That’s all I am saying.
Now some people still want the child/parent relationship with God. That never works out. Just developing an adult relationship with one’s own parents is very dificult so is developing an adult relationship with God.
PS I don’t belive in God.
But why is it so hard for some people to accept that the creation myth in The Bible is just that–a myth? Christianity is not wholly dependent on a belief that the book of Genesis was handed down by God. Prophets in later parts of the Bible may have been dealing with genuine mysticism, but even they were capable of misinterpreting things a little.
If God was going to sit down and tell mankind a thing or two, it wouldn’t consist primarily of telling the ancient Israelites the history of… the ancient Israelites! He’d most likely start with some basics such as, the world is round, the Sun is a star, the Earth goes around the Sun, etc.
But what I think is the most glaring indictment of the Bible’s credibility is that it says virtually nothing about the environment. Surely an understanding of the interdependant nature of the ecosystem is an idea that God would consider very important to convey to man. And man’s capability of causing grievous harm to the environment is something God would want to warn againt, as a moral issue.
The answer, in one word, is YES.
Now if you are a Biblical literalist, you can play one sort of head game and deny scientific evidence because it contradicts how you interpret the Bible. If you care to be the sort of skeptic who loves to do putdowns of religion (and note that I am defining a subset of skeptics here), you can take a literal interp. and show how it contradicts scientific evidence and therefore must be, uh, used cattle feed. Or you can read it as the poetic statement of God at work in creation (including the Big Bang, the laws of thermodynamics, the evolutionary paradigm of phylogenesis, and so on), told in fabular form to stress the creative work of God, the goodness of His creation, and the mortality of humanity compared to it all. I see very little difference between the repetitive sequences of, say, Goldilocks’s adventures in the house of the three bears “…but the baby bear’s (whatever) was just right” and the six days of Creation “And God said, let there be (whatever), and there was (whatever). And God saw (whatever) and called it good, and the evening and the morning were the Nth day.” Both are eumnemonic (structured to be easy to remember) accounts, used for oral teaching and stressing certain points.
As for the Jews stealing the Babylonian Creation account, I think that’s about as accurate a way of saying it as stating that your post was stolen from G. & C. Merriam and Co., since they had published all the words in it well before you composed it. In point of fact, it does have some parallels, but omits a lot of the gory details of killing the Chaos Monster, the love affairs between the creating deities, and so on. In point of fact, I suspect that whatever the pre-Exile account may have been (a snippet of it may be preserved in Genesis 2:4), it was rewritten to take into account the Babylonian story which “the young are reading pagan trash and turning from God’s way” (as the young have been doing in the minds of older generations since Cain and Abel turned 13, no doubt) and tell the truth of YHWH’s unaided creation, making inferential references to the Babylonian story to contradict it.
Is Christianity Compatible with Evolution?
Yes.
Trout asks:
Certainly. Especially since the central tenet/concern of Christianity is the death/burial/resurrection of Jesus and what that means to mankind and NOT the origin of man. Other than the basic assertion that man is a creation of God and that, therefore, God has a right to say anything about how men and women live. As several other posters have already stated, a person can get along just fine believing in Christianity AND believing in evolution. I think the real question is “Is Genesis compatible with Evolution?” and in that case, the answer depends on your interpretation of the creation story.
I used to be a very staunch Creationist but I got bett…er, I have since re-evaluated my position on the topic. My current position is that a)the whole point of the Genesis account is NOT to provide an exact treatise on how the earth was created but is instead to assert that God is the Creator… the exact details of how He did it are unimportant as long the underlying Truth is understood and b) there are a lot more important things for Christians to be concerned with (how 'bout we work on that “Love Thy Neighbor” thing a bit more). Personally, I could still go either way. I find the Creation story more aesthetically pleasing (myths often are), but there’s more scientific evidence to support evolution. But if either version where to be definitively proven to me tomorrow, it would have little to no impact on my religious belief.
Part of the overall science v. religion problem lies, I think, in some fundamental misconceptions about the purpose of science versus the purpose of religion. I was a double major in Biology and Religion in college and that often earned me a lot of odd looks and some questions about the contradiction between the two. In my mind there is no contradiction any more than there’s a contradiction between apples and oranges. Science is a means whereby we ask questions about and understand the natural world. Religion (at least Christianity, the one I know the most about) is a means whereby we try and understand our relationship with the supernatural and His/Her/Its relationship with us. They’re looking at two different things. Science cannot say anything meaningful about God because He is outside the realm of scientific inquiry. In turn, Religion is not meant to provide specific, detailed answers about the processes of nature so that Joe Diety can reproduce the world in His lab. That’s not really the point of religious truths, including the Genesis account. And we run into trouble when we try to treat the Bible like an article in a scientific journal or, for that matter, a modern history book. In doing so, we often miss or obscure the real point of the Bible, which is to reveal man’s relationship to God, God’s relationship to man, and what both can do/has done about it.
Trout also mentioned:
The definition of evolution that I learned in my graduate level DNA, Chromosomes, and Evolution class is “a change in the frequency of alleles over time”. What drives this change in allele frequency is usually presumed to be things like random mutation coupled with natural selection (which, by the way, does “direct” evolution). However, there’s no way to design an experiment to prove (or disprove) that God is somehow acting on an organism’s DNA either via causing the mutation or the selective pressure. God is sometimes described as a “Prime Mover” or “First Cause” for any/all events. To prove (or disprove) that He’s not is simply beyond science’s capabilities.
The argument has also been made that presuming a God who can meddle in the processes of nature (i.e. do miracles) negates the validity of natural laws. However, in order for miracles to be valid/useful, they have to stand in contrast to a generally-accepted view of the way things work. Resurrection is pretty meaningless if things return from the dead all the time or on a whim. And if you’ve gone and created a bunch of beings that operate on logic and rationalism (well, ideally we’re supposed to), it would only serve to drive them bonkers if you kept changing the direction of the pull of gravity every few days just for kicks. So I don’t think the presumption of the existence of a Creator invalidates science at all. In fact, I think God wants us to figure out the world we live in and probably gets a kick when we finally work out how signal transduction pathways operate and how this can be used to cure a particular form of cancer. Part of “delighting in Creation” is learning how it all works.
Whew, that’s way more than enough for a second post… Hope I didn’t bore or confuse anyone.
Michele
Truot: your definition of evolution, is a common one, but one which has caused many misstatement amoung fundies & their ilk.
Evolution, ie the changing/adapting of species- is a FACT, and as solid a scientific fact as “the earth goes around the sun”.
The “Theory” of evolution, is the mechanism(s) of how this comes about. That is hotly debated, and not generally agreed upon, even by the leading scientists.