This is a bit vague in definition of terms. What part of the church has endorsed your thelogy? It seems to me there are a lot of different denominations, and they are different in observable ways, some of the differences resulting in serious theological arguement and divisiveness in Christ’s church.
Thank you for this clarification. I did not understand how you really felt about some of the positions some of the writers here have stated.
This certainly helps me understand better what you believe. Thank you for that.
And based on what I think I understand of your position, I believe we, as Christians with differences of opinion on some of the details, agree on the most important aspects of the topic of evolution, that evolutionary theory, as it is understood by Christian biologists, is a natural process that God instituted, and that God has used, with an unknown (and unknowable) level of direct intervention by God as life on earth has developed, in the development of the whole wide range of living things that are present on this earth at this time.
I am a nationally recognised Lay Preacher, ostensibly in the United Reformed Church but recognised across most of the denominations within the United Kingdom, the obvious exception being the Roman Catholic Church (that does not recognise even the clerics of Nonconformist churches). I actually trained as a Methodist.but transferred twenty or so years ago for reasons I would rather not go into. Suffice it to say I have been leading worship (and preaching) for over 40 years with all the training and disciplines that entails.
That doesn’t make me right of course.
(I expect people to question what I say. I encourage it. ultimately what you or I believe is between us and God.)
I think evolution serves as a religion to many atheists. At the very least, evolution qualifies as a cult … especially, it seems, in the scientific community, where the theory is passed off as a fact. Weird stuff.
Yeah - scientists do have a habit of preferring reality over idealogical blindness and hearsay. And increasingly these days, that does make them a bit weird. There is also a remnant of Christians too who still prefers truth over all the tribal echo chambers. I guess we’re kind of weird that way too.
Not only the scientific community, but Christians as well, maybe because many of them are in the sciences. And it is not just passed off as fact, largely because it is fact.
This suggests to me that you have either an unusual notion of what constitutes a religion or very little experience with the scientific community. That evolution occurs and that existing species are related by descent from a small number of common ancestors are facts; the theory of evolution is an explanation (to date, by far the best theory) to explain them.
Most such contrived illusions I can see both at once. Where I stumble is craters on various bodies in the solar system where my mind decides, “This is a hill with an edge in shadow”, and it takes some effort to see it as a crater; or worse, an escarpment where my mind latches on to seeing it as a cliff with the high side sunward and there are no clues in the picture to determine otherwise.
I think it was wolves I was reading about . . .
Anyway it was an article about the alpha in some species’ packs taking a “vacation” and leaving the pack to fend for itself, where observation revealed a surprise: that vacation was permission for other males in the pack to connect with females, thus making an opportunity for those males which could be persuasive to get their genetic heritage passed on. And when the alpha came back, and there were a whole batch of newborns later on, the alpha acted as though they were all his offspring.
Perhaps I could make a small contribution here, as I am interested in the wolf/dog evolutionary transition.
My reference is a book of collected papers “Wolves / Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation”, edited by L. David Mech and Luigi Boitani.
Wolf pack dynamics are complex, with alphas dying off and juveniles striking off to find females from other packs sometimes, but generally there is usually a breeding pair. Unlike dogs, female wolves only come into heat at most once per year, with wolf pups born early enough in Spring to coincide with birth pulses of herbivores to provide easy prey for the pups and parents. Not all females come into heat though - a quote from one paper: “… the duration of each phase [of the reproductive cycle] and the magnitude of hormonal changes within each phase vary among individuals, possibly depending on interactions among such factors as genotype, age, experience, body condition, latitude, and the social environment”.
These days, I have taken on the role of caretaker of a breeding dog for a service dog organization. There my task is to follow the instructions of the experts at the service dog group, not to expound on the science of wolf reproduction .
Thanks for the interesting information Andy. Yes, I can imagine the dynamics of wolf packs are dependent on many factors and are quite complex. And have fun as a service dog caretaker!
There are two different aspects to discussions about evolution, as with every other area of science: the mechanics of evolution, and philosophical discussions around it.
The mechanics of evolution concern details that we can determine through observation, measurement, evidence and experiment. Examples include the timescales involved, the nature of the fossil record, details about precisely who did or did not evolve from what, the mechanisms involved (mutations, natural selection, genetic drift, horizontal gene transfer), mathematical equations, laboratory technique, and so on. These things are established, rock-solid facts, and to dismiss them as a “cult” or as “theory passed off as fact” is unwarranted and out of touch with the reality of the world we live in.
Philosophical discussions about evolution on the other hand, concern questions that are less tangible, more subjective, and not so amenable to laboratory or field investigation. Examples include the implications of evolution on questions of faith, moral questions arising from it, what role, if any, different flavours of naturalism should play in the investigations, the ultimate capabilities of science, and Kantian viewpoints that invite the question as to whether or not you’ve ever considered what Schiller would have to say on the subject. These things are much more subjective and open to debate, and it is these things for which viewing them as established, rock-solid fact is unwarranted.
Some Christians go off the rails here when they treat discussions about the mechanics of evolution as if they were discussions about the philosophy of evolution. Thus they may claim for example that it’s just a matter of subjective opinion whether the Earth is six thousand or 4.5 billion years old, that measurements are meaningless because they have to be interpreted and assumptions made, or that what you conclude about the end result is just a matter of looking at it all through a different lens.
Some atheists, on the other hand, go off the rails when they treat discussions about the philosophy of evolution as if they were discussions about the mechanics of evolution. Thus they may make claims that evolution has disproven the existence of God, when in reality the theory of evolution says nothing one way or another about the existence of God. Or they may view the subject as an authority on the morals and ethics that we should live by.
In discussions about evolution, it is therefore important for all of us to make sure that we are getting our facts straight about which aspects of the subject are established, empirical facts, and which aspects of the subject are more subjective and into the realms of speculation and opinion.
It would appear that, according to people here, there is no speculation or subjectivity.
And my opinion that there is is misguided and based on a lack of understanding of evolution.
You do not have any impiracle fact that can prove the first or the primary use of feathers.
(an there was no need to bring that subject up here.) other than to prove{
except that should read: according to some people here. (I hope)
Because the assertion itself is subject to speculation and opinion
When you are repeatedly faced with people taking the most rock-solid and indisputable facts imaginable, and not only dismissing them as subjective opinion but in some cases even denouncing them as heresy, it is all too easy to err on the other side, start lumping the more subjective, opinion-based elements together with the rock-solid facts, and get defensive about them as well.
The solution here is to make sure that you’re being crystal clear in how you are expressing yourself. In particular, be careful to avoid words and phrases that mean different things to different people or that are easily misunderstood. “Darwinism”, “evolution” and “methodological naturalism” all fall into that category. Instead, refer to the underlying concepts explicitly.
That’s why, when I’m addressing claims about the factuality of evolution, I will generally spell out exactly which concepts, to the best of my knowledge, are facts – such as deep geological time, the common ancestry of species, and the ability of mutations and natural selection to add information to the genome. It’s also why I avoid trying to justify methodological naturalism and instead argue for the underlying requirements of accurate measurement, accurate reporting of information, and not making things up.
Some people don’t believe what happened, ‘which aspects of the subject are established, empirical facts, and which aspects of the subject are more subjective and into the realms of speculation and opinion.’
Like nested hierarchy, demonstrably, with fossil and DNA evidence.
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