Where does evolution leave God? (page 2)

Gladring

I have heard Karen Armstrong interviewed on radio a few times. Her notion of god is so vague that it's not worth worshipping. She does have some accurate/interesting things to say about the development of the notion of god and religion as a human concept. I just don't think she follows it all the way through to it's logical conclusion.

bohm

hamilcarr: The way i see it, its totally subjective. If you have, for once, desided that the only reasonable model of God is one where he created earth as the center of the universe, then astronomy disproves God. Its a matter of creating an artificial choice.

Narkissos

Good points Borgia.

Maybe it could be expressed this way: there is more than "facts" to "truth". Or, if there is not (because after all you can define a word like "truth" in more than one way), that will reduce "truth" to a pretty miserable, petty and uninteresting thing. Guernica (by Picasso, not Dalí ;)) paints something which I would choose to call a "truth" about the Civil war which no objective description can reach. And it is -- very graphically -- a fragmented, dislocated, blown-out "truth".

The problem with modern cosmologies is that they lack the "mythical" dimension which allows individuals and communities to relate to them -- connecting a self-understanding with a world-understanding, through a number of both literary and ritual mediations. Psychology, medicine, philosophy, politics, history, science, art, all prototypes of which used to be united in traditional cultures, have become strictly separated fields which hardly communicate anymore. Whether the gains were worth the loss can be debated to no end, but the fact is there is no way back. Any attempt at making sense will have to poetise or mythologise the difference rather than the unity.

drwtsn32

Those whose God lives in the gaps of science will continue to have issues with scientific advancement. Their God is dying.

I have religious friends who have no issue accepting scientific advancement and find it no threat to their spirituality. Their God will continue to live on.

PSacramento

I am not sure why people think that God and evolution are at "odds" with each other, to me evolution is simple one of the many tools that God uses, we just choose to call it "evolution".

leavingwt

I am not sure why people think that God and evolution are at "odds" with each other, to me evolution is simple one of the many tools that God uses, we just choose to call it "evolution".

Please allow me. . .

Young Earth Creationism is not compatible with Evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism

Millions of people believe this, including 10% of the people in Britain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/01/evolution-darwin-survey-creationism

-LWT

PSacramento

See, the way I see it, when science has PROVEN some thing then we must find how it fits into our beliefe system, NOT deny it or pretend it doesn't exist.

The oldest skelatons are how old? 4.4 million years old?

To deny what we see and whatis proven is an insult to God.

leavingwt

See, the way I see it, when science has PROVEN some thing then we must find how it fits into our beliefe system, NOT deny it or pretend it doesn't exist.

You are not a Fundamentalist. You're in harmony with the Francis Collins breed of Christians.

In my opinion, you are intellectually honest.

As such, it would be "possible" to find enough evidence that would compel you to declare that specific/certain gods do not exist. Which, I'm certain that you've already done.

PSacramento

LWT,

You are correct, I am not a fundanentalist.

I don't like or advocate extermissim in ANY FORM, I know enought to know that we don't know everything, LOL !
I keep an open mind.

There are many reasons NOT to believe in God, to doubt the existence of God or any supreme being ( for lack of a better term).

Science has not given me enough to do that, nor will it ever I think, simple because my believe is NOt based on science or on what can be proven.

I believe in God because I know God and his Son.

The rest falls into that belief.

Of course I will die and I MAY discover that there is NO GOD, and that will be that, or I will die and discover that there is, cool.

Either way, I can "live with it" :)

GromitSK

How evolution affects God depends on what one means by 'God' surely? If my understanding of God is some kind of floating Santa Claus 'magicking' things into existence then I can see evolution will be problematic. If I am determined to shoe-horn God into a definition that seems to fit with the Bible then I can see problems with evolution (unless I am happy to adopt increasingly tortured explanations for how the Bible is correct and inerrant). If on the other hand I am prepared to accept that my understanding of God (assuming there is some kind of God) may change as the universe is better understood then I can't see how any actual or potential discoveries about the universe will necessary eliminate the possibility of the existence of some kind of God.

Where does evolution leave God?

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