How does that substantially differ from what Der Trihs said:
I was suggesting that the premise was pretty far out there to begin with.
Yes it does clear things up and raises a further question. If i understand you correctly, you believe that god intended to create man the spiritual being and god could have done so using any old animal that managed to crawl out of the primordial soup. Is this correct?
Do you agree that man the spiritual being as described in the bible must necessarily have a certain level of intelligence (to at least discern right from wrong and understand the consequences of choosing one or the other)? If that is so, then god could create mamn the spritual being only in an animal that had such intelligence. Therefore, man intended to create some animal (man or otherwise) with the intelligence necessary to be created by god as man the spritual being. Agree?
I humbly submit that the above view is inconsistent with evolution because it presupposes the existence of an animal with enough intelligence for god to create man the spiritual being.
My understanding of theistic evolution is that it does not contradict natural selection in any way. That is the non-random part of evolution. Mutations, and changes to the environment, are the random part. How could we possibly distinguish the cases where the asteroid fell randomly or the asteroid was slightly tweaked by god to fall? In any case, evolution does not require the environment to be random. Forget breeding - many species have evolved naturally to fill niches created by man, things like rats and cockroaches.
Evolution is basically a heuristic for searching through the space of possible life forms to find the set best adapted to a certain environment. Consider adaptation as height over a plain. Through natural selection species evolve to climb higher on hills on the plain. If God could force species to descend the hills - to survive while becoming less fitted to their surroundings - that would be interesting, but theistic evolution says that species only climb, just like standard evolution. There are two ways randomness affects this model. From time to time a hill disappears, or becomes uninhabitable, so species on that hill are SOL.
The second is that a species on the plain will randomly choose which hill to climb.
If one of these hills is labeled man, we can’t tell the difference between god pushing our ancestors to this hill, or our ancestors randomly reaching it. Studying how we climb the hill, and how fast, can be done in either model. It is simpler to assume true randomness, but not required.
Intelligent design has god plucking us from the plain to the top of the hill. Since we have evidence of the climb, that makes no sense, and theistic evolutionists agree.
The importance of a created Adam and Eve to original sin seems far more of a problem with respect to evolution and Christianity than anything you have brought up.
I thought I put that part plainly, but I’ll rephrase. All that is required of a creature is that it can both connect in some way with God (what I called “hear”) and have a reasonably clear comprehension of What it is connecting with (what I called “contemplate”). Man is convenient in this regard for his temporal lobe for the former, and the capacity of his frontal lobe for the latter.
I don’t understand that question. I think the syntax may be garbled or too complex.
After these couple of posts we’ve exchanged, it seems to me that what you meant to claim in your OP is that it is impossible to be a Biblical literalist that accepts the theory of evolution. And with that, I would agree. But a Christian need not be a Biblical literalist. Also, I think there’s a fundamental problem with your humble submission, since it knocks out not only theological mechanisms but scientific ones as well, owing to the philosophical nature of presupposition. Natural selection presupposes the existence of living organisms, but that doesn’t make it inconsistent with evolution.
Liberal, all I meant to say was that you seem to believe that god intended to create some animal that is capable of being infused with “man the spiritual being,” whether that animal is man or some other intelligent animal. Therefore, you haven’t side-stepped the criticism in the OP at all because you are still saying that god intended to create something, and I am arguing that that idea is inconsistent with evolution.
Rand Rover, you seem to be saying (illogically, I believe) that, because the process of evolution itself has no goal or intention, it cannot be used by God to bring about God’s goals or intentions.
Of course evolution doesn’t have the “aim” of producing humans. It doesn’t have any aims at all. No natural process does. Whatever happens is whatever happens. But we can use “whatever happens” to further our own ends. And so, presumably, can God.
Rand Rover, would you agree that humans breeding wolves into dogs is an example of evolution?
If not, I think you have a flawed understanding of evolution. (Or I do. I could be wrong)
If so, how does that differ from god “breeding” older lifeforms into humans?
After reading the helpful responses in this thread (i.e., some of the responses were more helpful than others), I can accept that it is possible for a christian to accept the theory of evolution. That christian would have to believe that the universe was given little pokes and prods all throughout its history so that conditions were just right for man (or, Liberal, some intelligent being) to evolve.
Therefore, I concede that it is not illogical or impossible for a christian to accept the theory of evolution. However, it just seems exceedingly silly and obnoxious for a christian to do so. I mean, we have this theory that does a perfectly fine job of explaining how humans got here without any pokes and nudges from an outside force, and christians don’t need to explain how god did it to believe that god did it. So, it just seems like a juvenile debating tactic for a christian to say “OK, I acknowledge all of the evidence for evolution and accept the theory, but it can be explained by god poking and nudging to make the conditions just right.”
This, then, raises the NOMA argument and its (in my mind, easy) rebuttal–the god hypothesis fails because the existence of a god is not necessary to explain anything, and the universe is a very different place if one accepts the existence of a god.
Why couldn’t God have set things up from the beginning so that human beings would come along eventully, without any subsequent pokes or prods necessary?
And why isn’t the pointlessness and goallessness at least as much evidence for God as against God? If evolution, being so aimless and random, produced something as complex and unlikely as human beings, it’s not unnatural (whether or not it’s correct) to suspect that there was Someone behind it.
But if I have other reasons (i.e. other than needing “the god hypothesis” to explain anything in a scientific sense) to believe God or to be a Christian, this is irrelevant.
(complete article here)
I used to be a Christian and I believe* in evolution. My current atheism has nothing to do with evolutionary theory, as I can easily posit a God who would choose to act through the forces of natural selection and so forth.
My wife is a Christian and believes in evolution.
My pastor** refers to evolution as a fact in her sermons from time to time.
My wife’s pastor disbelieves in evolution, but he is an idiot.
So there seem to be some holes in your argument.
*When I say “believe” in this context, it’s shorthand for “provisionally accept the truth of the proposition, as the best explanation of the currently available facts, and further judge attempt to deny the truth of the said proposition as perversely obscurantist unless large numbers of radically surprising facts were to be revealed.” But that’s terribly awkward in a sentence. 
** Yeah, I’m an athiest who goes to church. What can I say? I like the people and the music and think they do good work for the community, despite being a deluded bunch of hippie pacifists beleivers in magic.
Skaldster, you know better than this. But I’m going to give you a pass on this one because I haven’t seen you around in a while and I guess I missed you, you big lug you.
This to me seems very close to a perfect refutation of Rand Rover’s argument. If I may be allowed an analogy: a computer is a machine. It has no intrinsic sense of purpose driving it – it performs its operations mechanistically, according to the hardware it is built from and the software loaded on it.
However, that software is the product of a human being, and is written to be run with a purpose in mind. To avoid the idea of games and applications intended to have human input (like VBulletin, World of Warcraft, etc.), let’s presume a program that calculates Fibonacci numbers. When set to run, it will tirelessly nd without human interference crank out sequential Fibonacci numbers for as long as it is set or allowed to run.
The program itself, like the computer on which it runs, is non-teleological. It does precisely as it is structured to do. But the purpose of the programmer in no way affects that – causes it to internally sense its purpose.
Now, swap the program. This one runs on a supercomputer, and, starting from random raw materials, is set to let them react randomly with the intention of preserving the fittest results, with the goal of producing A.I. emulations of the programmer, which may heuristically develop the ability to identify (accurately or not) the purpose of the programmer.
Does this analogy help in grasping how one can hold both Christian beliefs and an acceptance of accepted evolutionary theory?
I understand Polycarp. I juts think it’s rather silly. It eviscerates the beauty and genius of evolution to just say “yeah, but god got the ball rolling // poked and nudged to make conditions right.” It’s also just frustrating to see people be so irrational, but whatever floats your proverbial boat I guess.
Fundamentalist Cow-Orker: You are studying Anthropology? Do you believe in evolution?
Me: Kinda goes with the territory.
Fundamentalist Cow-Orker: Then you can’t be a Christian.
Did not reveal that I was a Roman Catholic and, thus, immune from his logic. I mean, my God in Heaven, Mendel and de Chardin were freakin’ PRIESTS, already. The groundwork for the eventual condemnation of Catholicism was laid in the 19th century.
I’m not sure why you feel this way. But this is an emotional statement, not a rational one. I get the impression you dismiss the idea of God because it doesn’t feel rational to you.
Beauty? Genius? :dubious: Sounds to me like you’re admiring evolution’s, dare I say it . . . design?
No, I said plainly that it makes no difference to me whether God created anything or not, that it serves His purpose all the same.
Again, it seems to me that you intended to say that it’s impossible for a Biblical literalist to accept evolution. And again, a Christian is not necessarily a Biblical literalist.
I have two entirely unrelated questions, Rand:
- What’s the antecedent to “this” in “you know better than this”? My entire previous post, or a specific assertion in it?
A) Is your screen name an allusion to Ayn Rand? No special reason; I’m just curious.
I’m not sure why I’m arguing with you (given that I agree that the ToE is basically correct and am willing to say that there is probably no God at all and certainly not one Jimmy Swaggart would recognize), but given that evolution is mindless and not without any end or designer, how can it have “genius”?
I’ll concede that it has beauty. But if God existed, I rather think S/He would act through evolution, very slowly (from a mortal point of view); I rather view it as setting up an Rube Goldberg-esque series of events to accomplish His/Her aims, because S/He enjoys watching the process.