Is Evolution a Radical Idea?

The Roman church, hey?"Scripture simply says that the moon, the sun, and the stars were placed in the firmament of the heaven, below and above which heaven are the waters." - Martin Luther"Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?" - John Calvin, Commentary on GenesisWhile we're at it:"Giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible." - John WesleyAnd:"What, there is to be no serf because Christ has redeemed us all? What is this? This means that Christian liberty is turned into liberty of the flesh. Did not Abraham and other patriarchs and prophets own serfs? Read what St. Paul has to say about servants, who at that time were all in bondage. Therefore this article is directly opposed to the Gospel." - Martin LutherSlavery, witchburning, geocentrism ... and, today, fiat creationism. All the word of God, according to Protestant theologians slightly more eminent than you. "Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved." (Psalms 96:10)

Well, until the Protestant Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church WAS the church. Whatever the reasoning and the politics behind it, Galileo was forced to recant. Even after the Reformation, the protestant theologians continued to deny heliocentrism, as Dr. Adequate has pointed out. Possibly. However, at the very least (without ad hoc rationalizations and "interpretation" of the text), the Earth certainly wasn't formed in six literal days in 4004 BC. Geology and physics, not evolution, tells us that much. So if you read the Bible as literally true from the very first word, then you have a bit of conflict to deal with - as you noted. Either you go with science, in this case, lose your faith (if that is the only option), or decide that maybe - just maybe - the Bible wasn't intended to be a science text. Again, possibly. However, I see this as a very narrow viewpoint. I think it is the literalist who "compromise(s) or distort(s) known facts". After all, they deny the facts of science (esp. geology, physics, cosmology, etc - and of course biology). I understand your point about "not clearly grasp(ing) one or the other". From my experience, however, it's the "believer" who fails to grasp the beauty and evidence of biology, rather than the other way around.

Beautiful quotes. Some of my favorite ('cause they're based on biology instead of cosmology) include:Species tot sunt diversae, quot diversaes formas ab initio creavit infinitum ens.* (Carolus Linnaeus, 1735, from his seminal work Systema Naturae: Creationis telluris est gloria Dei ex opere Naturae per Hominem solum**.)And, of course, the naturalist/theologian John Ray, "Yet on ye other side there follows such a train of consequences, as seem to shock the Scripture-History of ye novity of the World; at least they overthrow the opinion generally received that since ye first Creation there have been no species of Animals or Vegetables lost, no new ones produced." (1695)It's kind of funny - the Catholic Linneus very much agrees with Faith, whereas the Protestant Ray talks about speciation/evolution 160 years before Darwin. Hmm, gotta wonder about those damn Romans...* There are as many species as originally created by the infinite being.** Nature's Systems: The Earth's creation is the glory of God, as seen from the works of Nature by Man alone.Edited by Quetzal, : forgot part of title

Many naturalists were Christians inspired by God's creation. It is very possible science wouldn't have happened at all in the West without them.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

All the early naturalists in Europe and ultimately the Americas were Christians. The big difference between them and what you've implied here is that many of them weren't adverse to deciding that elements of the Bible - specifically Genesis - were wrong based on their observations of the natural world. By the turn of the 19th Century, catastrophism, special creation, and many other Biblical or Biblically-based former beliefs were well and truly on the way out. I sometimes find it amazing that 200 years later, we still have people trying to resurrect them.

That is the most direct conclusion that can be drawn from the genealogies and other time indicators in the text. It requires no rationalizations or distorted interpretations. Well, geology and physics are the product of HUMAN INTELLECT, Q. I understand that you don't believe the Bible is inspired by God, but to one who does, there is no way anything that contradicts it can be said to "tell" us anything that is to be trusted. Geology and physics can't trump God. That's that. We accept what they say that doesn't contradict His word and there's lots of that. I already spelled out the conflict, Q, your statement doesn't say anything new. Some do lose their faith in favor of mere human intellect. BAD move. Those who maintain an agnostic stance concerning how to resolve the conflict may be in OK shape spiritually, but those who go with science over God's revelation are making a bad mistake. It IS a very narrow viewpoint. NARROW IS THE WAY AND STRAIT IS THE GATE, said Jesus. It COSTS to be a disciple of Christ. Costs putting up with the ridicule of those who choose science over the Bible for one thing. These things are not judged by human intellect, Q. If you know the Bible comes from God, there is simply no option. Narrow, schmarrow. Yes, that is the point of view of human intellect. The believer has another source of knowledge.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith writes: Unless of course, the geology and physics of nature, as understood, were created by God.As you know, we disagree. I believe in the works of God over the words of men.I also believe your personal and seemingly self-proclaimed infallible interpretation of the Bible is inferior to my feeling of personal humility in my gradually unfolding understanding of God's creation.But as I best gather from you, you believe your book of secondary sources trumps the entire universe of God's creation.My God is bigger than your god Edited by anglagard, : forgot my sigEdited by anglagard, : no edit

---

Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
Sir Francis Bacon

i think its funny you say this given your verson requires just as much mental gymnastics as anyone elses.
and how do you tell when the text presents itself as history? i've read the bible at least 50 times now (at least the parts that seem to come up all the time) half of it is impossible and the rest of it reads like mythology from every religion i've ever read about. do you have some magical way of reading it?
it reads just like fiction, you just believe it because its yours

oh we can follow them just fine, they just arn't very good arguments, in fact they are just plain wrong, whether in understanding of the theory or how parts argued are devasting to the theory i'm just not following your logic here, if the theory is used for science in other areas, how can you call it an unsupported assumption?

yes, so what? they are nothing like the Yecs and such today. they never considered adam and eve to be literal, even Augustine didn't think taking the bible literally was a good idea.
I highly doubt that people read the bible as literally as Yecs do,though i agree that they where inspired by the world god created. but they did it to learn about whats there in the world, not filter it through the bible as many creationists do now. they found it was just wrong to think ussher was right and the earth is only 6000 years old

.Edited by ReverendDG, : website slow, can you delete this one

By this statement you disqualify yourself from any discussion involving scientific analysis. Science never elevates any hypothesis, theory, law or evidence to the level where it is beyond questioning. Nothing is certain in science. Everything is tentative pending the discovery of new evidence, or even a new hypothesis that better explains the evidence that we have.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

I was under the impression that physicists were the group of scientists with the largest fraction of atheists. But I may be mistaken.

I was unable to find the link. There are periodic surveys, and biologist showed up as a higher percent atheist in these surveys.It is my impression that physicists are a bit more likely than other scientists, to support creationism of the deist variety. This is usually based on some kind of fine tuning argument.

If you're referring to the survey in Nature (1997) then physicists were most likely to be atheists, then biologists, then mathematicians, but there wasn't much in it: belief was about 40% in all groups.I have also read, but cannot find the references, that the scientists least likely to believe in any form of the supernatural are psychologists.Interestingly, a follow up to the original study in Nature shows that the best scientists are more likely to be atheists. HereNote that in this survey of top scientists, the biologists are more atheistic.The creationist claims about atheist scientists are a double-edged sword. If the people who have made the most careful study of Nature conclude that it had no creator ... what does that tell us, eh?