Why can't Creationism and evolutionism perhaps be the same thing?

[seekeroftheway]

This very query constantly bugs me when I see two people arguing on either side. The Bible does not specify HOW God put adam and eve on Earth. How do we know they didn't evolve from one celled organisms? If they did, then they were still pretty much "placed" on earth at that time.

 

[iam]

Because christians have a different belief system and do not believe in evolutionism. Anyways, even if some did that is not the root of the problem. For christians, the sole authority of life is a book written by men claiming it is the divine word of god. People like this cannot be trusted as they pick and choose what they deem to be true or not, regardless of reality or truth.

 

[seekeroftheway]

Well, yes, but even (most) christians value peace over conflict. I know quite a few who, if they chose to, could probably agree with this. It's sad that they're so attached to their own dogma.

 

[KennyJC]

I'm not sure about that. Most Americans agreed with the war in Iraq and I don't think it's a coincidence that secular countries were much more opposed to it. Sure, christians in some way might think they're doing something good when starting a war, but at the end of the day it is another invasion to notch up on their CV.

 

[Ophiolite]

Because christians have a different belief system and do not believe in evolutionism.

This will come as a massive shock to the Pope and the entire Roman Catholic Church, not to mention the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England, and a plethora of other denominations who have zero problem with the concept of evolution.

 

[Mosheh Thezion]

IT CAN BE... a predestined evolution..
which can vary from my proposal here... but in general its a good bet.


-MT

 

[iam]

This will come as a massive shock to the Pope and the entire Roman Catholic Church, not to mention the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England, and a plethora of other denominations who have zero problem with the concept of evolution.

Baptists, episcopalians, church of christ, church of god, seventh-day adventists, jehovah's witnesses, and a plethora of others do not believe in evolution.

Christian Denominations (Protestant, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, etc)
During the 16th century, the Church came under heavy criticism. Reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the king of England Henry VIII saw many problems with Christianity as defined by Catholicism. Among their complaints were the prayerful intercession of Mary and the Saints, the Church’s selling of Papal indulgencies, and the Churches view of Divorce. Due to their open challenges of these beliefs, movements (which were generally referred to as being “protestant”) formed based around their ideas and new ways of practicing Christianity came about. Many of these denominations do not believe in the Pope and so do not have corresponding Church leaders, therefore a single official view of evolution for each denomination does not exist. However, members of each denomination can be classified, in a VERY GENERAL way, as being either liberal or traditional.

Liberal Lutherans and Protestants feel that the Bible is a document that is not meant to be interpreted literally, and so see no contradiction between the scientific theory of evolution and their view of the Biblical creation story.

Traditional Lutherans and Protestants feel that the Bible is a document that is meant to be interpreted literally, and so believe that creation occurred more or less as it was described in the Bible. Accordingly, they see evolution as contradictory to their beliefs and do not accept it.

Evolution was never an original part of the doctrine of christianity whether some choose to incorporate it into thier belief system or not. Christianity incorporates facts around their beliefs and still do. That is what religion is.

 

[Ophiolite]

Baptists, episcopalians, church of christ, church of god, seventh-day adventists, jehovah's witnesses, and a plethora of others do not believe in evolution.

I was not disputing that. I was disputing your inaccurate contention that Christians do not believe in evolutionism (sic). The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England account for a significant number of the world's Christians. It was misleading to make the blanket, erroneous statement that you made.

I would be quite happy with a statement to the effect that Christians are divided over the issue of evolution, with many opposed to it, and many in favour of it. May we agree on that?

 

[iam]

I was not disputing that. I was disputing your inaccurate contention that Christians do not believe in evolutionism (sic). The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England account for a significant number of the world's Christians. It was misleading to make the blanket, erroneous statement that you made.

I would be quite happy with a statement to the effect that Christians are divided over the issue of evolution, with many opposed to it, and many in favour of it. May we agree on that?

NO, Ophiolite. Because it is not true. No christian I have ever met believes humans evolved from an ape. Hence, they reject evolution. They just adjust it in terms that creation did not happen in 7 days. My stepfather was raised roman catholic and later became a baptist. I was a member of many orthodox and nonorthodox roman catholic, independent, and southern baptist churches. Besides that, they also regularly met with and were affiliated with many other denominations. And my blanket statement was not sick because it is the truth. You of course, do not have to accept it. I'm sure you have much more experience than I. Lol, the same logic as a christian who says they do not believe in witchburning though it implicitly states in the bible witches should not be allowed to live and yet defend every word of it. Yeah sure.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII addressed the question of man's origins more
specifically in his encyclical *Humani Generis*. With a few terse
paragraphs, he set forth the Church's position, which we may summarize as
follows: 1. The question of the origin of man's *body* from pre-
existing and living matter is a legitimate matter of inquiry for
natural science. Catholics are free to form their own opinions, but
they should do so cautiously; they should not confuse fact with
conjecture, and they should respect the Church's right to define matters
touching on Revelation. 2. Catholics must believe, however, that the
human *soul* was created immediately by God. Since the soul is a
spiritual substance it is not brought into being through transformation
of matter, but directly by God, whence the special uniqueness of each
person. 3. All men have descended from an individual, Adam, who has
transmitted original sin to all mankind. Catholics may not, therefore,
believe in "polygenism," the scientific hypothesis that mankind
descended from a group of original humans.

So, from the Catholic point of view, the scientific questions of evolution
are largely left open to debate. Evolutionary hypotheses which attempt to
explain the development of living things may be accepted except where they
conflict with these few explicit truths.

They do not believe in E V O L U T I O N. They believe what they want to and it isn't evolution.

 

[Ophiolite]

iam, I am not especially interested in the views of the small number of Christians you have met, or the distorted views they may have of their religion. You refer to Sountern Baptists, so I take it you are from the Bible Belt. I have no doubt that disbelief in evolution is a commonplace there.

However, the official position of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England is that evolution is a fact. I trust you are not going to disagree with that.

You remark - And my blanket statement was not sick because it is the truth.
I did not say your statement was sick. I quoted you including the word evolutionism. There is, in my experience, no such word. Therefore I used the standard Latin indicator - sic - to indicate that the error was carried forward from the original.

 

[usp8riot]

Truth is, we are all individuals. If I say you (meaning any one of you) were an American, does that mean you have to be associated with what your typical American does or believes. That is the same viewpoint as racists, biggots, and people who kill for their religion. To mark everyone as the same. I am a Christian and believe there may also be many of religions of God. I am a "modern day" Christian, as I call myself. I believe science tells no lies. Science is pretty much the study of God. It studies His works. If you study my works or the way I think, you are studying me. On the point of creation, God created all in 7 days. What's he gonna tell everyone, after a million years, He created man, then another million, He created this animal which evolved into this animal as we know? And that before we were a pre-species and discuss all the species involved til He got to His final creation, Homo Sapiens? Then discuss all the species of dinosaurs before animals evolved as Homo Sapiens know them? And discuss every freakin thing He knows, it's irrelevant. It's all in your head. Science made me find God and my ability to reason, what God instilled in all of us to know wrong and right, helps backs my faith, not hinder it. Knowledge can be a distraction for what life is really about, which is doing what God wants us to do, ie, doing good to your fellow human beings and respect the earth and all His creation.
We are created in God's image after all, and He, I'm sure, would create through a process. Not through a *zap* and we're all here, that's stupid. We create through a skillfull, well thought out and evolved process which gets better as we go just as evolution did. Common sense.

 

[iam]

iam, I am not especially interested in the views of the small number of Christians you have met, or the distorted views they may have of their religion. You refer to Sountern Baptists, so I take it you are from the Bible Belt. I have no doubt that disbelief in evolution is a commonplace there.

However, the official position of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England is that evolution is a fact. I trust you are not going to disagree with that.

You remark - And my blanket statement was not sick because it is the truth.
I did not say your statement was sick. I quoted you including the word evolutionism. There is, in my experience, no such word. Therefore I used the standard Latin indicator - sic - to indicate that the error was carried forward from the original.

Polygenism Can Not Be Believed
Polygenism, the belief that Adam and Eve were not two individual persons from whom all human beings descended, is an idea which is condemned by the Catholic Church.

What about Pope John Paul II's recent message to the meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences?
It is important to note that the Holy Father’s recent statements regarding evolution were his opinions, not part of the Ordinary or Extraordinary Magisterium, as they were not addressed to the universal Church. Humani Generis (Pope Pius XII's Encyclical of 1950), on the other hand, is part of the Ordinary Magisterium, and so does carry much more weight. Besides that, it does not seem that the Holy Father directly contradicted any of the the fundamental teachings in that Encyclical, but simply gave a more positive outlook on Evolution than the Encyclical did (which also said that it was not heretical to believe in Evolution). Humani Generis does explicitly condemn a belief in Polygenism:


37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is no no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.18
18. Cf. Romans, 5:12-19; Council of Trent, Session V, canon 1-4


"Adam" means "man" in Hebrew, so could that be what the word means here?
The Hebrew word 'adam has more than one possible meaning.
It means man in the sense of mankind (both men and women), it means man as distinct from woman, and the third meaning is the proper name Adam. The question of which meaning of 'adam the word here refers to, may be settled easily just by turning to the Septuagint. The Septuagint translates 'adam as Adam , so the meaning of the Hebrew here was obviously the proper name Adam, and not a collective noun.

Compare that to the way the Septuagint translates pere' 'adam in Genesis 16:12 agroikos anthropos , not Adam , since in this verse it was not a proper name. [He shall be a wild man: his hand will be against all men, and all men's hands against him: and he shall pitch his tents over against all his brethren.”]

This understanding of the name Adam is also backed up by St. Jerome’s Vulgate translation.

However, the Roman Catholic church has by no means accepted the concept of Naturalistic Evolution in its entirety:

Naturalistic evolution includes the belief that all aspects of humanity evolved from earlier species. This conflicts with the church teaching that each individual's "spiritual soul is directly created by God." Naturalistic evolution concludes that what the church calls human spirit emerged "from forces of living matter or as a simple epiphenomenon of this matter." The pope regards this as "incompatible with the truth about man...[and] incapable of laying the foundation for the dignity of the person."

If you want me to admit the church may believe in evolution with the exception of man, then it may be. But I didn't know you could be half-pregnant. To me, they are full of ____, but that is my opinion.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

This very query constantly bugs me when I see two people arguing on either side. The Bible does not specify HOW God put adam and eve on Earth. How do we know they didn't evolve from one celled organisms? If they did, then they were still pretty much "placed" on earth at that time.

The process of evolution would have led to many humans. 'Adam' and 'Eve' would be two of millions. That contradicts the bible and therefore makes them incompatible.

 

[usp8riot]

Wrong CC. As in Darwin's theory, when two species which both have mutated genes get together, there is a lot better chance of them producing offspring with the same mutated genes. Probably the same way we came to be Homo Sapiens. You know "sex", right? An initial species is always started with two. The chances of maybe 20 same-species animals with the same mutated gene meeting in the same local, breeding and producting offspring at the same time is pretty dang low.

"The process of evolution would have led to many humans" - That's right, we are many humans

"'Adam' and 'Eve' would be two of millions" - So what before A&E and before the milllions? No two to create all after it? When evolution got to Homo Sapiens, I believe that's when He said it was "good". Those two with the mutated genes may have gotten together and produced offspring and if that gene was dominate, there could be many to carry it without in-breeding.

 

[iam]

The church rejects Adam and Eve evolved from lower life forms.

 

[usp8riot]

That may be the official response but there are plenty of people in the church that have a clue.

 

[(Q)]

I believe science tells no lies. Science is pretty much the study of God. It studies His works.

So, by the very nature of science, which does not show any evidence of gods, we can eliminate the need for gods and their associated labels.

If you study my works or the way I think, you are studying me.

But, we have some evidence to your existence, no?

On the point of creation, God created all in 7 days. What's he gonna tell everyone, after a million years, He created man, then another million, He created this animal which evolved into this animal as we know?

Anything else would be a lie, don't ya think?

And discuss every freakin thing He knows, it's irrelevant.

No, it would be necessary. That's the whole point.

It's all in your head.

And everywhere in nature, too.

Knowledge can be a distraction for what life is really about, which is doing what God wants us to do

Yes, I've noticed the contempt theists have for knowledge. Good reason though, as knowledge ultimately destroys everything they believe. Why wouldn't they have disdain for it?

I'm sure, would create through a process. Not through a *zap* and we're all here, that's stupid.

Stupid, but strongly held as a reality amongst theists.

We create through a skillfull, well thought out and evolved process which gets better as we go just as evolution did. Common sense.

And, what process would that be?

 

[Ophiolite]

If you want me to admit the church may believe in evolution with the exception of man, then it may be. But I didn't know you could be half-pregnant. To me, they are full of ____, but that is my opinion.

iam, I had noticed a few of your posts on other threads. I didn't pay particular attention to them, but you seemed like a reasonable level headed sort of guy (or gal).

I had no intention of turning this into a major debate. You had made an observation that was inaccurate. I corrected it. I didn't expect the emotional and fact devoid response I got.

So, no. I do not want you to admit anything. I thought you were someone with whom one could have an intelligent discussion. I made a mistake. So, really, go ahead and believe what the **** you want to. You certainly shouldn't allow yourself to be swayed by facts, or evidence; and I am confident you won't be.

Enjoy the rest of your life. Bon chance.

Ophiolite

 

[(Q)]

You motheaten grumpy old scoundrel, you.

 

[iam]

iam, I had noticed a few of your posts on other threads. I didn't pay particular attention to them, but you seemed like a reasonable level headed sort of guy (or gal).

I had no intention of turning this into a major debate. You had made an observation that was inaccurate. I corrected it. I didn't expect the emotional and fact devoid response I got.

So, no. I do not want you to admit anything. I thought you were someone with whom one could have an intelligent discussion. I made a mistake. So, really, go ahead and believe what the **** you want to. You certainly shouldn't allow yourself to be swayed by facts, or evidence; and I am confident you won't be.

Enjoy the rest of your life. Bon chance.

Ophiolite

There is no evidence or facts. The church does not believe in evolution. They do not believe adam and eve evolved from the lower primate family. And if some do, they state their god breathed into humans a soul which separates man from the animal kingdom. That is not evolution. We are animals, the only difference between man and other lifeforms on this planet is our brain development and intelligence. I don't care what your opinion is, I know what I'm talking about.