Humans faults and evolutionary biology

I am A Christian, but I don't take the creation story literally, and as a result I believe in theistic revolution. However, lately I have got doubts, so I wanted to ask something here.A important facet of Christian teaching is that humans are prone to sin, and we choose so by free will.But without to much education on the subject, I can see some of the sinful humans tendencies being biological traits and mechanisms. Examples could be, anger, sexual desire, desire to dominate, humans being influenceable. Some of these traits seem to make sense for a amoral, evolutionary way. I would like it when somebody could enlighten me a bit if this is true.God has been shown in the bible to be displeased with humans faults, such as the story of noah indicates, and of course Jesus's sacrifices for humans sins.So my question is: If god hates sin so much, why did he create us like this, with this traits?Even when, existing out of time, he knew what would happen? We might be able to suppress it, but through history, humanity still causes trouble.I haven't been able to rationalize this.I am looking for more information from a theistic evolutionary view. Are there flaws in this statement? Or does anybody agree?I do not know where to put this, I am new, but I would like that a few people who do know more about the subject can reply.

Thread copied here from the Humans faults and evolutionary biology thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.This is both a science and faith topic.Edited by AdminModulous, : No reason given.

I can't promise I can help make theistic evolution rational, but I can help you develop a self-satisfying answer that helps you continue to believe:Adam and Eve are allegorical accounts of the human soul. The human souls were given a choice: Have a body with sinful desires along with the soul that has pure godly desires - and gain the capacity to freely choose between them as you will OR stay in pure soul mode. By 'eating of the fruit' the souls chose having sin-craving bodies. Jesus - realizing the souls have 'shot themselves in the foot', lives a life free from sin and tries to tell us how we can at least try and do likewise. This act of faith allows God to essentially redeem any soul that so much as tries to follow in Jesus' footpath (I am the way) and allow us to live eternally as souls rather than dying permanently as bodies (the price for having a body is that it dies).Personally, I think a more rational explanation is that the Christian concept of 'sin' is a flawed attempt to explain troubling things about people made in a time when they needed an explanation but had no tools other than evidence-free reasoning to do so. This was a post Socrates Hellenised world - where Socrates had already proven that a) souls exist and b) they were immortal. So the Greeks that wrote the books of the NT needed to take those 'facts' into account when they updated Judaism.Which would push you back to deism, next stop pantheism, final destination: atheism. Enjoy your ride

For the record, I'm a theistic evolutionist. I don't know.If god doesn't want us to masturbate, then why are we so damn horny all the time?Maybe god didn't make us like this, maybe the devil did it, maybe... whatever. But who knows? We don't really have much to go on with this one. There's whole debates on that one; god being all powerful and all knowing, but allowing evil...Again, I don't know. I lean towards god being something very close to, but not logically exactly, all powerful, at least not how we understand it.At least, it's the easiest way to wiggle out of the logical contradictions! They're good questions, but nobody has the answer to them.I think a lot of the questions like this boil down to not knowing why god relies on us having faith in him rather than just showing himself to us. If he showed himself to us, then we would know that he exists... but apparently he doesn't want it that way. He wants us to not know and instead have to rely on faith in his existence.There was a thread on that here: Why is Faith so Important to God?I didn't get much out of it though, and the question remains unanswered for me.

Hi WSW24 and welcome
Human are not just prone to sin, but we are born sinners because of what Adam and Eve did. When we say God hates sin it should be interpret as God hates when people break his commandments. When you commit sin you are a slave of sin and God needs to punish you, otherwise he would not be God, since God is justice. You are an enemy of God, which means; you are an enemy of God’s laws. We need the justice and holiness that God demands, and he demands we are 100 per cent loyal towards his Laws. However, it is the humans that owe God something and that God that owe him self. God needed to condemn us to death and everlasting suffering if he did not do anything, thus it really was the humans that paid, but in the same time the price that only God could pay (and therefore he sacrificed Jesus you know the rest). God did not create us with sin but we became sinful and now we are born with sin. We are all filthy sinners, especially if you ask Luther’s opinion.Regarding anger, sexual desire, desire to dominate, human being influenceable(??) they can be viewed as positive. Without going too much into details; anger: Why do we get angry? That is when we feel offended or mistreated. It is a way to make other people aware of your own feelings is through anger. Desire to dominate: Depending on what degree you think of dominate my answer will vary — to be a leader is not a bad thing, you are dominating but not in a necessarily bad way. Sexual desire; sex is not a bad thing. It is good for your health, it helps you to make cute babies — in fact it is bad to suppress your own sexual desires (if we just look at your own health).In any case, I really think you should separate these two things. I understand why you want to mix it together since you speak of theistic evolution, but it would probably help you tremendously if you did study theology and science separated.

IMHO, every culture deals with this question through their philosophical and religious views. We see ourselves as being separate from animals, and yet we seem to have some of the same desires and faults as animals do. It is interesting that a serpent (an animal) is the antagonist in the Genesis story who conned humans into commiting the original sin. After Adam and Eve eat of the fruit containing the knowledge of good and evil God says that humans are now like God, knowing good from evil. Again, we see the intersection of morality and the human animalistic vessel where each is first separate and then together.

But what is it in our nature that causes us to offend and mistreat others? I think that is the question being asked.

Might be the question. Here I would prefer, simply, to point to the field of psychology, but that is probably not a answer he can use. In a theological point of view is it The Fall (simplified), however, we can explain the same things with natural processes and end up concluding it is a natural phenemonon. That is not too informative but I think it should be okay for a start.My point was more about that such feelings is not necessary because you are "evil" but because bad things happened to you - again, why threat other people? Free Will, natural processes? Could be the same in the end.

Well, I think the two are connected in various ways, god did design this world after all, so this world and our knowledge has to make sense with our knowledge with god, otherwise we're leaving a blind spot open.But what I wonder is, while it's true some of our traits make sense in a way, why is god so mad and disappointed in humans, when he knew our many traits would backfire horribly and cause suffering-In general, there's another thing. Imagine a rough thug who's been convicted to jail because of repeated violent behavior. But some people are naturally more agressive then others. Let's assume this person is biologically prone to violence.It happens IRL, our brains work this way. Sometimes the chemical system is messed up, and as a result people can have trouble controlling their anger.
He may be responsible for his deeds.I also agree with that. But can he help having a error in his brain making him more violent? People have free will. But our biological personality influences us, and it set beyond our power.
It's like this to a lesser extent with humanity.We can(and must) use our free will to restrain ourselves. But often we fail in small, or big ways because the ways our brains work.
-One thing, as I do not believe in literal Adam and Eve, I think it's off topic to use it as a literal solution to explain our sinfulness.Otherwise this will spin of in debate considering it's truth. The symbolic value is allowed though.

Of course they are connected, but it seems to me you make some errors in your way of thoughts because you connect them.Here in Denmark we have some very well educated priests. They go through 6 years of university studies in theology and 1 year on a priest/church school after that. The point; what they do is working with the axiom that God of the Abraham religions exist and then try to understand the paradoxes within these religions. Probably, most of them are agnostic atheist (just like me) but I bet they have good idea of how to understand the paradoxes that you i.e. refer to.In God's view we are all equal no matter how many sin we commit; you and I are as sinful as the rough thug. We are all so damn filthy and sinful, so filthty filthy!However, now I am an agnostic atheist and do not believe in the idea of God. Now, join the dark side (atheism), we got cookies!
No, seriously, if your belief in God does not make sense it might be a hint.

Alright.This replies have been helpful, but I haven't really got to the point to rebuke this idea in it's totality.Also, to gain a good view, can somebody support my problem, to gain a good view from both sides?

Why do you not see that you are being conned? This stuff is just a blatantly obvious ploy to put people under the boots of the priests/parsons/pastors/imams/mullahs/rabbis/etc. It keeps the pews and collection plates full.While you are grovelling in terror, they are living an easy life on your dime.

I am an agnostic atheist so I do not believe it myself (am I still being conned?). Anyways, I understand you line of thoughts but I do not agree fully with you.When I say we are all filthy sinners, I mean everyone, everyone is guilty and in that sence equal (sinners). What I did not say which I took for granted, is that your relationship with God is personal. A priest are able to tell you a lot of useful stuff about the bible and help you understand the paradoxes involving when you believe in God, but he is in no sence above you when it comes to whom is closer to God, not even the Pope is closer to God (surely some will disagree)Again, I am an agnostic atheist and even if I was a Christian according to these standards, I would not be terrified by other people but God - in a more complex way.I bit off-topic maybe, but I hope it is okay.

You hit the nail on the head. I don't know any theist who actually answers this question when I pose it.I don't want to discourage you from your beliefs, but it is entirely possible that while God may exist, he/she/it may not be the God you expect. The bible and Qur'an like to assert itself as the infallible word of God, but it is entirely possible that they got it all wrong.

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal

I think you may have misunderstood me.My view is that this idea that all are automatically guilty is a ploy by the priests etc to make themselves necessary to you. If you are in the grip of this morbid self-hatred that they promote, you are more likely to come to their churches, mosques, temples, synagogues etc, donate your money, and generally put yourself in their power.