What is the real reason for denial of evolution?

Faith & Science Conversation
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@Christy,

I would maintain that there fewer Creationists in churchs of that sort, and/or they are more tolerant of the sciences, including Evolution.

Or, conversely, the Creationists that offer the most hostility towards science correlate to those churches who hold Original Sin most dear.

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Maybe. But I think it is reductionist to crystallize resistance to science around Adam as if it is the only thing, although that is a big issue for many. When I was growing up being taught YEC, I don’t think original sin came up at all. I was just taught that evolution was an inherently flawed theory that ignored evidence and tried to impose a godless, bible-less world on everyone. There was actually much more focus on a historical Noah than on Adam.

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@Christy

I think there is a reason Creationists no longer emphasixe Noah or the Flood. Like everything else, Creationist Apologia has undergone much rigorous “natural selection” over the decades!

Romans 5 is the most robust “tool” they have.

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Really? Someone didn’t get the memo.

image

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26

As a toirist trap… the Ark is perfect.

But as proof of the bible… making a physical replica of the ark is something necessary to shore up the fantasy nature of the Ark.

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27

It is also necessary to explain away large swaths of evidence for evolution.

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Although there are probably several intertwined reasons (including those mentioned above) behind the denial of evolution, it may be that people are sensing – and fearing – what evolution has to say about the theodicy question.

Evolution tells us that when suffering exists in nature, a response arises that demands change. Few things are guaranteed except the constant rebalancing of ecosystems to maintain what might be called “a buffered state.” Hierarchies and status exist, but only in limited ways, and never with the destructive force of human hierarchies.

Evolution seems to be saying that God is okay with adaptive change, the kind of positive change that emerges from our struggle with pain and suffering. I’m sure there are many people on this board who have gone through deeply personal experiences of transformation as a result of this struggle. I know I have. The loss of my young son to cancer many years ago forced me to ask questions about God I wouldn’t otherwise have asked.

The theology that arises from evolution is in conflict – or appears to be in conflict – with the theology that arises from salvific doctrines. And this, I think, is what frightens people.

It’s not that Genesis 1 is inherently in conflict with evolution. Heck, everything happens in the right order, as if the author knew, for instance, that birds predated most of the mammals we know on the planet today. But Genesis 1 shows us an orderly and good creation, a place where suffering doesn’t seem to exist until Adam and Eve come along in the second narrative and wreck everything.

A lot of theology, and a lot of human authority, rests on our assumption that pain is always a bad thing and always a sign of our separation from God.

But doesn’t the life and death of Jesus tell us something very different? Especially about what it means to be made in the image of God?

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6 posts were merged into an existing topic: Dealing with pain

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I moved the posts relating to pain to their own thread to further the conversation there.

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It would still be interesting to hear from those who actually reject evolution. My assumption is that the primary reason is that you feel the interpretation you have of scripture is primal, and all else must follow in concert with that interpretation, but would be interested in hearing from you directly.

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32

I don’t deny evolution but I do reject the Theory of Evolution.

I used to be in the Theistic Evolution camp but Richard Dawkins made me a YEC. (Way to go, Richard!)

He said in a book something like “You can’t consistently believe in evolution and be a Christian.” Since I am a Christian then logically that meant I couldn’t believe in evolution. That’s not the reason I reject the Theory of Evolution [TOE] (but not evolution); since there is no particular reason to believe Dawkins on anything; but it provided the impetus to study the claims of the TOE which eventually convinced me that the theory is wrong.

If I could be convinced that YEC is untenable then I would probably move to the Theistic Evolution/Intelligent Design viewpoint.

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What features would a geologic formation need in order for you to accept it as evidence for an old Earth? What criteria do you use to determine the age of the Earth?

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Seems to me this points to this being more about power, control, and manipulation – creating and environment where questions are discouraged and only blind obedience to the accepted way of thinking is allowed. Thus the evolution issue becomes an easy thermometer by which to measure whether you are thinking according to what has been dictated or not.

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Why?

Because science & evolution are usually used to deny the Existence of God in heaven, and to undermine Christianity.

Going beyond a mere humble description of what is happening (“inverse square law, mutation & selection”), science & scientific theories are used to reject any & all supra-terrestrial influences in earth history

So many “throw out the baby with the bathwater” to preserve their Faith.

Many want to (try to) use human science as a battering ram to break down Christianity & Religion.

They thereby infuse their own bias & hostility into what would, otherwise, be much more muted & non-offensive scientific assertions. And Religious people react to that anti-Religion bias “pork barreled” into the science.

There are many as-yet-apparently unique aspects of our Solar System:

Titus-Bode Law
gy = c [earth gravity x earth year = speed of light]
eclipses because Sun & Moon are the same angular size
Life
Complex Life
Intelligent Technological Life

All of the above are anomalies of structure & organization exceeding any of the known exoplanetary systems. You could construe that as evidence for some sort of supra-terrestrial “hand” at work.

Mutation & selection does not exclude a supra-terrestrial “hand” at work in either or both of those processes. Humans have from time immemorial claimed that supra-terrestrial Powers have saved some humans and condemned others – so influencing the “selection” side of the “evolutionary equation”.

Nothing makes evolution incompatible with a Divine Agent at work, even dominantly so, in earth history. If pure science could be divorced of the philosophical opinions of scientists then there would exist much less antagonism between Religion & pure science.

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That may happen occasionally, but science and evolution are usually used to understand the natural world. And the scientific enterprise has been very successful. (Speaking of that, be sure to get your flu shot and have your blood pressure checked!)

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I don’t find this an accurate caricature of the Christian communities I’ve personally been involved in where I wouldn’t mention evolution. In their minds it is about respect for God’s word and living life in submission to what they sincerely believe is truth. I can respect that.

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Moses was very successful also. So was Jesus, his movement converted the pagan Roman empire, something no European peoples ever did.

The claim is, there is a supra-natural factor in our otherwise natural world, and there COULD well be, even if such hasn’t been proven by human scientists.

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Submission to the truth is good provided it is the truth one perceives for oneself, otherwise it is just submission to an expert. A friend just started teaching literature at Cal and is teaching Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment this semester. I mentioned that my favorite passage in any book comes from there. It was hers too and together we just about fleshed it out. For a secularist I guess you could call this part of my ‘scriptures’ and I cite it because I think it applies here:

“What do you think?" shouted Razumihin, louder than ever,
“you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can’t even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I’ll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you’re no better than a bird. Truth won’t escape you, but life can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other people’s ideas, it’s what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?” cried Razumihin, pressing and shaking the two ladies’ hands.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Dostoevsky was a very religious man as well as a great writer.

*Edited to say you obviously had in mind “sincerely held to be true”, not “cowed by authority”.

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I belive in God, so I don’t see what the problem is.

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“It would still be interesting to hear from those who actually reject evolution. My assumption is that the primary reason is that you feel the interpretation you have of scripture is primal, and all else must follow in concert with that interpretation, but would be interested in hearing from you directly.”

We, at Reality Research & Development, reject evolution as the cause of life because our 31 years of research on the subject reveals the essentiality of super-intelligence (far beyond that of mankind) for assembling atoms into molecular machines like kinesin, ribosomes, etc. The three Nobel Prize Winners in Chemistry (2016) worked for 33 years to assemble a few molecular machines that are almost infinitely more simplistic than any of the molecular machines built for our new cells every day of the week. How much intelligence and equipment does evolution have?