Believers, do you believe in evolution? (page 14)

Benjie

I beleve, cyberjesus, and it is very hard to know what all the fuss is about on here.

It seems perfectly clear to me that some people are just out to make trouble, while others are being very reasonable. But I am not going to be so dense as to name names on a board to which I am rather new.

cyberjesus

oh you wont be dense... just judgemental :-)

Benjie

I do not judge anyone. But I see what I see.

Some are reasonable, and some who like to sound reasonable are anything but.

For the record, I believe in God, and there is no conflict between religion and science. Creationism is just silly and denies facts, but the story of the creation in the Bible is not fact. Only people like Jehovah's Witnesses think it is.

PSacramento

Then opinion. Okay. Other than theological arguments, which I'm not interested in, and to keep it close to topic, is there scientific evidence or something that can be tested?

Nope, I don't think that we can test for a soul or spirit, that is why discussions of such tend to be philosophical.

We can't text for love, for compassion, for thoughts or other abstract thing, we can simly see the mind being active and neurons "firing" and so forth.

Some say that our bodies bio-electical field is the spirit or a sign of thr spirit ( some in Tradiditonal chinese martial arts and medicine thing that is "Qi" or "chi" if you prefer).

Maybe in the future we can study and find emperical evidence of such, that would be very cool.

Right now we just have opinions and specualtions.

NewChapter

We can't text for love, for compassion, for thoughts or other abstract thing, we can simly see the mind being active and neurons "firing" and so forth.

I don't find that a satisfying comparison. It's true, because we can't get into someone else's brain, that we can't prove what or who they love etc. But we still have evidence. We also can experience love ourselves. It can be tested to a degree. If someone cares for us, it shows. They could be lying, of course, but we don't have to doubt that love actually exists, because we are capable ourselves of experiencing love for others. So while we can misjudge such from person to person, we don't doubt that humans have the capacity to love.

When it comes to a soul, (or spirit or whatever----just trying to avoid the semantics argument) well we don't get anything at all. Just stories that there is something undetectable yet tangible within all of us. That is pure and blind faith.

But I was asking the question not to challenge the existence of the soul (spirit, etc) but to ask those that DO believe in the such things and Evolution, how you reconcile the two in your thinking.

PSacramento

But I was asking the question not to challenge the existence of the soul (spirit, etc) but to ask those that DO believe in the such things and Evolution, how you reconcile the two in your thinking.

I guess that would depend on how one views and understand soul and spirit.

If one views soul as life than the moment a being is alive it is a soul also.

If one views that only humans have a soul then they can viewed it as:

Humans became humans as we know them NOW because God gave them a soul, so the being that "begot" the first human(s) did NOT have a soul.

Really it is up to the inividual to reconcile their understanding of one with the other, as has been done down through the ages.

NewChapter

Really it is up to the inividual to reconcile their understanding of one with the other, as has been done down through the ages.

Not really. Evolution is quite new when compared to Christianity. And it took a while for bible believers to embrace it. Our understanding of it has grown a great deal since Darwin. It has been fairly recently that some churches have decided to go with science. So this is a pretty new problem to be worked out, and I don't think that many have given it deep consideration. They are only recently trying to reconcile the two ideas.

Yet unless one believes that all living things have a soul (spirit etc) that survives death, then there had to be a point where humans acquired such an ability. That would mean that at least one generation of children would have been 'complete' humans with physical and spiritual, and would have had parents that weren't 'complete' humans with something that survived death. It's a challenge. That's why nobody can answer it clearly. It's problematic, and I think you can only reason on it some much, before it must simply be accepted on blind faith. If it wasn't blind, there would be evidence, and therefore a way to find a satisfactory answer.

Yet, if we think about it, a creator would have known about Evolution long before Darwin, and it would have realized that humans would eventually crack that code, and it would have realized they would have been left struggling for answers about immortality in the context of Evolution. Not a minor question at all. This is a god that concerned itself with the mixing of wool and linen, and gave specific instructions. I wonder why it didn't leave some clues about this bigger question? Instead, humans are floundering for a way to make it all fit, with no real guidance. So I guess that means that each will just settle on a story that causes the least discomfort.

PSacramento

Not really. Evolution is quite new when compared to Christianity. And it took a while for bible believers to embrace it. Our understanding of it has grown a great deal since Darwin. It has been fairly recently that some churches have decided to go with science. So this is a pretty new problem to be worked out, and I don't think that many have given it deep consideration. They are only recently trying to reconcile the two ideas.

It didn't take the RCC that long to embrace Evolution.

In the beginning they didn't really have an official position because, well, there wasn't one even in science when Darwin came out with it in 1859.

The Pope made an official comment on it in 1950 when he said there was no conflict between Christianity and evolution.

Now that was almost 100 years, yes, butlets not forget that it took science quite a bit to accept ALL that Darwin was theorizing.

NewChapter

Well, 62 years ago, but if you must round up, I guess 100 is a valid number. So let's go with it. 100 years and the details are still not worked out for the followers. We know God's feeling on mixing wool and linen, and we know his feelings on boiling meat in milk or whatever, but this teeny, tiny question remains unanswered and up to the individual to work out all alone. That's my point. Why is it that when a greater point is being made, a person will focus on the minor details while skipping the point? It baffles me.

Anyway, I've put the question out there. There are no good answers. It's not my problem, because I don't need to reconcile my non-belief in a soul with Evolution because it fits just fine with no need to beat it into shape. It is of interest to me that this does not seem to concern or maybe even interest many very much, but it must be very uncomfortable trying to make it all fit, and you don't need me to keep sprinkling salt on it. I'll leave it at that, unless someone takes the challenge and gives an honest attempt to explain it in their own words and with conviction.

Believers, do you believe in evolution?

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