Natural selection but Adam and Eve

So does natural selection can be applied to the homosapiens adam and eve?

Natural selection applies to all biological things, whether humans or bacteria.

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There are many different views on Adam and Eve. You’ve got historical vs literary. Within historical, you’ve got de novo creation (with other humans already evolved) vs being born from the existing population. There may be other options as well.

I don’t think we can know what really happened. The main points of the passage are easy to see, regardless of which view you take.

I personally lean toward historical, born into a population and called out by God… I can’t rule out a de novo creation of Adam and Eve amidst an existing population though.

Natural selection would occur as Adam and Eve’s children are born, just like it does today.

I mean if Adam and Eve were the “first” evolved humans natural selection doesnt apply there if im correct

Ok, I don’t believe they were the first evolved humans. Humans evolved as a population in the thousands, so there wouldn’t be just two humans.

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Well sure, it doesn’t “apply” to anything that doesn’t have ancestors.

11 posts were split to a new topic: Natural selection applies to species and not individuals

Amen! And Amen!

I would have only used one Amen, but posts that short seem to violate protocols.

I would say that natural selection applies to Homo sapiens but not to individuals such as Adam and Eve.

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Exactly! Though when I brought that point up they kicked it all the way into another thread. Somebody seemed to find this idea offensive for some reason.

I’ve pointed out elsewhere that Adam and Eve’s creation is unparalleled, just as the Virgin Birth is unparalleled. I’m also a writer of short stories and anyone is welcome to read (free) a fictional take on their story, which I’ve put on my website at hillintheway - The Adder

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And so the story is that God waited 4 billion years for humans to evolve and then held the advanced apes responsible for sin? That an advanced ape died for your sins on the cross?

Just putting it as sharp as possible.

So you don’t believe in evolution?

From the point of view of the eternal is one unit of time more significant than another?

It is true that natural selection and evolution is about populations and species rather than individuals. But of what are populations composed besides individuals? Wouldn’t what you say regarding Adam and Eve therefore be equally true of any individual baboon or gibbon?

Dear Nick,
If you look at what we know about evolution and genetics, there is a subtle story being told. The modern human developed very slowly, along the evolutionary path over 4 million years. But at some point, there was a transition from animal to a man of reason. About 100,000 years ago, the animal because a spiritual being. Since there are no genetic markers for reason or spirit, we have to reason to understand how the story of Adam and Eve fits together. This is the most logical explanation I have read:

Hominid research - the development to humans
We have dealt with the creation of inanimate matter using the example of the universe and would like to discuss the topic of living matter in a more central way, namely, with the origin of man. It is well known how this is explained in the present version of Genesis: One took a rib out of Adam, and thus another man, Eve, was formed (Gen. 2, 21 f.). , From today’s point of view, one may say that this formulation is awkward - the process in this way could have been impossible. It seems that at the time the text was being edited, the scribes became active. It probably had its reason why it was formulated at that time. The society, especially certain priesthoods, gave the woman a lower rank, and it was sufficient that it was created only from Adam’s rib.

With the help of the findings of the sciences, especially the hominid research, today there is the possibility to fathom the true facts and thus to correct important errors existing in the Genesis, which originated especially under the guidance of priests and scribes. Hominid research - in the traditional sense, hominids understand primates that are upright - is the subject of paleoanthropology (see Issues 2 and 4/04). The expertise available today clearly demonstrates that hominid evolution lasted over a very long period of more than 4 million years, and that innumerable small steps on the development ladder were needed until about 100,000 years ago, or just before, a very extraordinary development spurt in the direction of modern humans began. The cautious formulation is due to the fact that according to the current state of research after the Homo erectus and other archaic representatives initially an anatomically modern Sapiens appeared, which was relatively simple thinking, and finally only a little later with the culturally active sapiens the breakthrough to today’s rational man happened. Symbolically speaking, the hominid family underwent many transformations - both inside and out, as early hominids were even more animals than humans.

The creative aspect
In this context, the question arises as to whether a process of creation by a higher power is involved in each of these changes. This intervention seems to be happening largely in secret and expresses itself especially in the transition to the reasoned human well in such a form that you can hardly speak of a so-called missing link (missing link). This is also reflected in the way the well-known Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History defines man. In addition to a few physical characteristics, mental characteristics such as the ability to greatly expand planning and problem-solving abilities, the ability to speak, art and other forms of symbolic expression for humanity are all enumerated as distinguishing features of other primates.

Extreme evolution theorists, who see pure coincidence behind everything, fall into an explanatory emergency when looking at these facts. In the book Wonderful Life, the well-known paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941 to 2002) confesses that his work is “a statement about the natural history and the terrifying improbability of human evolution.” He recognizes that the development to man with the assumption of susceptibility is so to speak impossible but remains despite this knowledge on the position that this path to the Incarnation was made purely by chance. It must be remembered that Charles Darwin (1809-1882) still believed in the existence of a higher power in the formulation of evolutionary theory. In his book “The Origin of Species”, published in 1859, the naturalist assumed that a creator was at work.
“It is truly sublime to think that the Creator has breathed the germ of all life that surrounds us into little or even a single form, and that as our earth moves in circles according to the laws of gravity, it becomes one so simple in the beginning an infinite number of the most beautiful and wonderful forms arose and developed even further.”

Outlook: The Responsibility of the Young Generation
In contrast to the modern evolutionary theorists, Darwin still believed in a creator - this circumstance is mostly concealed today. If science were to consider this fundamental idea, it would be possible, with the possibilities and insights available today, to disentangle the confusion in the Bible and thus to contribute its contribution to a new enlightenment on creation. The example of Genesis was used to approach this approach. But with today’s science, it is just such a thing: Although it moves forward in principle, but with the fly in the ointment that there are times of mental standstill, in the sense that creative aspects in the formulation of hypotheses and theories too little or not at all. Therefore, in the future, it will take researchers who carry a reasonable faith in themselves, so that science itself receives powerful impulses. How can this be accomplished? One can contribute to this by bringing to the family knowledge and belief of one’s own children in such a way that the whole makes sense and merges into a logical whole. Many children of our latitudes have the great privilege of being allowed to study. Once parents are able to cement their belief in creation, they will once stop at the topic of “coincidence” and bring their thinking, because the younger generation is used to saying what they think. Anyone who wants to get to the bottom of creation needs a sense for the individual and the little one, as well as a spirit of exploration and respect for nature, for every tiny life has a purpose, a task, and behind all of this there must be tremendous coordination.

The original article in in the German Journal - Museion2000 Issue 1/2006 and I apologize in advance for the Google English translation.

The Son of God died for my sins.

Not sure why it’s a problem for God to wait 4 billion years. He transcends time. Is it a problem for you that he waited 4000 years to send Jesus after the fall? And it’s been over 2000 years and counting that He’s waited to send Jesus again. God often takes a long time to enact His plans.

I don’t have a problem with sharing a common ancestor with the great apes. The big difference between me and the great apes is that God gave me a soul. Humans are made in the image of God. I don’t know how or when God did that, just like I don’t know how or when God gives individual humans a soul during normal human reproduction. Some things we can’t know. :woman_shrugging:

Your caricature reminds me of the atheists who say the Bible is just fairy tales written by bronze age goat herders. They, too, are just putting it as sharp as possible.

Pretty much. Advanced ape is just a taxonomical designation, it’s not intrinsically offensive. What do you imagine is so unpalatable about this? Throughout the Bible it’s clear that God chooses whom he chooses, and it’s not usually the noblest specimen that gets honored.

“Waiting” around for humans is a pretty anthropocentric view though. I believe God delighted in the dinosaur era of his creation too, even if he did eventually single out humans for special contact. I think he might have a way of relating to dolphins we don’t understand.

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Crows too. I think they have quite a lot going on upstairs, as it were. But they also might be fallen… :slight_smile:

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Crows are really cool. I read this article recently with my kids about their ability to remember faces, how they have “funerals,” and how they use tools in a pretty sophisticated way. Are Crows Scary Or Just Scarily Smart? : Short Wave : NPR

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Interesting way to put it. I have sometimes thought that the big difference between us and the other animals is that we are divided from God. Maybe it is in being divided from creation that we share His image?

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