Do you believe in evolution or what your holy book says?

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Was there death before the Fall? Well, we know that for mankind there wasn't death before the Fall. What about other animals? I reckon that we are special, which is why there was no death for us. Animals? It's only logical that they died. Look at fossils. They were alive and now they're not LOOOOONG before the Fall happened.

Can someone tell me how evolution is yet to be proved? By us mutating into X-Men? Doesn't work like that. I had a big problem accepting evolution until I understood what it was actually about. I don't think it could have happened at all without God, but I can see how it happens today and has happened over the last few million years. OK, so one brand-new life form has evolved in the last 200 years only, and that was a hybrid grass. But look at bacteria. Whole new species can evolve in a lab in mere years. Without humans tinkering with the genome. It's adaption. I think that God did give us evolution so we could adapt to the world that we created (which is different to the world God created for us, because we've messed it up a fair bit). I think that is a gift of love. He could have made us static and unable to cope outside of Eden. No, my God loves the world so much that He ensured we'd survive until at least His Son arrived, and allowing evolution seems to me like the best way.

BTW, I'm often curious about how far back time-wise I could go and still be viable with another "human". I wonder if I went back to the time of Noah whether I would be able to have children with the people then, or if we've changed (evolved) too much. Which means that either we're not human or they weren't, which is a whole 'nother exciting thing to consider!

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

I think the problem - at least in my humble opinion - is that evolution is taught in schools as being the goo to human kind, as opposed to simple adaptation to ones environment. I know that until the other thread, I flatly refused anything to do with evolution, because I know I didn't come from a monkey or any other animal. BUT I can understand that environmental factors do impact on us - you put it really well LZ, about it being God's love that allows us to adapt rather than being made for the only place on Earth that we'll never find by ourselves.

I had a whole big 'discussion' with DH a while ago, based on the premise that Adam and Eve wouldn't have had belly buttons, as they were created and not born attached to an umbilical cord. I raised my own theory that they also wouldn't have required a 'back passage' while they were in Eden and therefore perfect, because that is used to rid the body of waste products. And if your body is perfect, and you're only eating perfect foods in perfect portions - what waste would there be?

It's interesting to wonder about how different Adam & Eve were to what we are now - our bodies seem capable of functioning with tonsils, appendix, gall bladder and even spleen in some cases, but Jehovah would have created them with a purpose, they wouldn't have just been superfluous. So I wonder what their designed function was in the beginning?

[Nelle]

I think there's a huge difference between evolution and adaptation.

I don't know if I've said this elsewhere on BB, but evolution involves pain, death, survival of the fittest. My bible records God as saying things were good at the end of each day. So with evolution, at the end of that 'day' where somehow life evolves from molecular form to a cow, for example, with all the struggles, mutations and violence along the way...and then God says that it is good, as in perfect. I'm not sure about that really.

While I think it can be beneficial to think on these things, to try and have a better understanding of our faiths, I try to be careful not to get too hung up on these things. For me, as a Christian, the most important thing is love, to love others and love God, and I've seen too many people get really grotty at each other because they get bogged down in these matters. So while I find it interesting, and I know of people who have found their lives significantly changed when their beliefs on creation/evolution changed, I don't base my faith on evolution vs 7 day creation. I believe God created, and while I have my own personal view that I consider to be not entirely uneducated, I don't claim to have inside knowledge any further than what my holy book teaches.

[Peg]

Wow, great thread.

I am concerned about the concept that women have pain in childbirth because of eve's 'fall'. It seems like a patriarchal oppression of women through the physiology of their bodies. The idea that god says women must feel pain seems to deny us the opportunity to experience child birth beyond pain- which I believe I did achieve. To think that birth=pain plays into medical intervention and the paternal model of care we have today.

I had a real struggle in coming to terms with the account in genesis about this 'curse'

Gen 3:16 “To the woman he said: ‘I shall greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy; in birth pangs you will bring forth children..."

When i originally read the text, like most people, I assumed it was saying that God had deliberately imposed childbirth pain as a punishment on eve.

However, the context of this passage is really focusing on the effects of 'sin' So its actually due to sin that women would find childbirth increasingly difficult and more painful. This is because our bodies have been deteriorating since the creation of Adam and Eve and with that deterioration comes more physical ailments which would cause problems for the complicated processes of pregnancy and childbirth. Just look at the number of miscarriages for example...this is pregnancy gone wrong due to genetics.

Im sure that Eve experienced some discomfort, but certainly nothing like what we experience today. If you've ever seen animals give birth im sure you'd agree that they do not appear to experience great pain like us.

In terms of evolution, if evolution is supposed to be 'improving' on nature, then surely human childbirth is an example where evolution is not really doing what its theorized to do.

[Arcadia]

So many interesting discussion points!

I think evolution is about change to better fit the environment, not just improvement, and the only real evolution humans have achieved in the last thousand or so years is to get bigger and have larger brains, which is an improvement for aspects of our survival...but like any adaptaption it walks a thin line between improvement and hindrance, because bigger people/babies mean a more difficult labour. Added to this is the obesity, and general poor fitness of many people and you have more complicated births than people thousands of years ago.

I am struggling with this notion of evolutionary theory being debatable...perhaps it's my atheist tendencies. I just cannot see past the archeological evidence. And what about dinosaurs? Where do they fit in?

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

I think as humans, we tend to want all the answers to everything NOW. I don't deny the existence of the dinosaurs, it would be a bit silly to do so given the overwhelming evidence. But I also don't feel the need to create a theory to explain it. Some scientists have theorized that, given the Garden of Eden would only have covered a fairly small amount of area in the beginning, there was more than enough room for dinosaurs to have lived at the same time as Adam and Eve, but God kept them away from Eden. Science actually supports that theory, with the snap frozen bodies of woolly mammoths being found with tropical vegetation in their mouths and stomachs. So they could have been used by Jehovah as a means of keeping the lush, tropical vegetation in check until the human population increased so much that the borders of Eden needed to be extended.

It's also important to remember that science and the Bible have gone head to head before, and the Bible has proven true. Centuries before Gallileo, the Bible talked about 'the circle of the earth'. Centuries before Newton, the Bible said the earth was 'hanging upon nothing', rather than on the back of 4 elephant and a turtle. And centuries before the discovery of DNA, the Bible mentioned a baby, screened off inside his mother, who's parts were already down in writing.

Just because we don't understand HOW something worked, doesn't make it untrue

[Peg]

I am struggling with this notion of evolutionary theory being debatable...perhaps it's my atheist tendencies. I just cannot see past the archeological evidence. And what about dinosaurs? Where do they fit in?

evolutionary science is highly debated even among evolutionists. Take the example of the dinosaurs....do you know how many differing theories there are among scientists about how they died?

some say they died due to disease others say it was volcanic dust, others claim it was a meteorite or comet...some say it was due to continental drift, some say climate change, some believe it was genetic...the list of different opinions on the subject is almost endless. The reason is simply because the fossils themselves in no way provide any such 'facts' about the dinosaurs. Scientists can speculate on them but thats about it.

Yes, dinosaurs existed. The bible doesnt say that they didnt exist so there is no reason to believe that the existence of dinosaurs is contrary to creationism. I guess the question about them is 'did they evolve or were they created?'

The fossil record shows that they appear suddenly (as all other life does)... they aparently dont have links to earlier life according to many paleontologists. To my mind, that evidence in itself leans toward creation.

[Cricket]

Here are my thoughts on fossils and creation:

Fossils simply show that there have been creatures who died and were buried suddenly, before they could decompose normally. In fact, some were buried in the midst of childbirth - I've seen pictures of a half born creature fossilized with it's mother. To me, the fossil record is one of the best evidences of a global flood - millions of creatures killed and buried in an enormous catastophe.

The fossil record also does not show ANY transitional creatures. Sure, "missing links" are found from time to time, but they have all been proven false after further research. That part generally doesn't make the news. The missing links are still missing. So, once again, the existance of fossils does not support evolution.

The only debatable point is the age of the fossils. Radio-carbon dating gives figures of millions and billions of years for many fossils. However, we have no way to determine whether these numbers are accurate. We assume that carbon decays at the same rate over time, but we don't KNOW it for sure. We are incapable of measuring the behaviour of carbon isotopes over millions of years. So there's one question about the accuracy of radio-carbon dating.

Also, when Mt. St. Helens erupted, fossils were created. There is a fossilized miners' helmet which has been discovered. It carbon dated at millions of years old. It was, in fact, a few decades old.

I also understand that it is often assumed that a fossil is a certain number of years old, based on the kind of rock it is found in. And we assume that the rock is a certain number of years old based on the kind of fossils that are in it, and where they fit in the evolutionary time frame. A bit of circular reasoning.

Finally, the fossil record actually supports the idea of dinosaurs and fully-formed humans co-existing. There is a fossilized footprint of a human, within a footprint of a dinosaur. There are also cave drawings of dinosaurs, and I believe that the legends of dragons and creatures like that, that are common in many places of the world are based human contact with dinosaurs long ago.

I have no problem believing that God created dinosaurs right along side of men. They were likely on the ark, with everything else. (The average dinosaur was about the size of a sheep, by the way, and Noah would certainly not have taken mature adults of the huge ones - young ones would have been smaller.) And, they may well have mostly died out in the climate changes that followed the flood, or some other circumstance. Species are being lost daily on the earth - becoming extinct for one reason or another. No reason to doubt that the same thing didn't happen to the dinosaurs.

[butterfly_warrior]

One of the things I found most amusing in my university studies of geology - they could use various different forms of radioactive isotope (it's not all carbon) decay to date rocks. They could take rocks formed at a known date due to volcanic eruption and they would date at millions or billions of years old. And yet geologists still trusted it to date other rocks!

I've seen pictures of gold chains found in the middle of coal seams.

Like cricket, I have no issues believing the earth is only around 6000 years old. I have no issues believing dinosaurs existed. I have no issues believing that fossils were created suddenly and rapidly in a global, catastrophic flood.

I do have serious issues trusting the dating methods that suggest the earth is billions of years old. I have serious issues believing in evolution.

I won't claim to have all the answers. I'm happy to trust that God knows and one day when we join Him we will also know (or it will become irrelevant!). I would much rather believe the bible is literal fact than be responsible for deciding which bits are fact and which are just poetry - that would be an absolutely enormous responsibility and one I don't feel qualified for!

BW

[Epacris]

As an environmental scientist and ecologist I find the notion of "believing" in evolution kind of strange. Darwin's theory of evolution forms the basis of all our knowledge about biodiversity at genetic, species and ecosystem level. This knowledge is how endangered species, populations and communities are managed. It's not like there is an alternative view, or another way of doing it, this is it!

For example, if you have three isolated populations of an endangered species you need to decide whether those populations are genetically distinct from each other and if they are beyond the point of no return in terms of number of individuals in each population. Once you have researched these two questions you can now make decisions about whether to mix the populations or keep them separate all with the ultimate aim of maintaining maximum genetic and species diversity. All our knowledge about this has come from Darwin's theory of evolution. To me it's not "just some crazy theory", it is a set of incredibly important and practically applied information that helps us as humans manage our impact on species and ecosystems, so we don't create even more chaos and destruction than we already have.

And in terms of artificial selection, you only have to look at the vast array of domestic breeds of animals to see that in action. I head somewhere that pug dogs have less genetic diversity than the critically endangered panda!

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

Thanks for your view Epacris - its interesting to see it from a scientists point of view!

In regards to using Darwinian Theory as a base for current environmental protocols - humans have had all kinds of theories over the centuries that have proven to be, not only wrong, but actually detrimental. Only a couple of hundred years ago we were still bleeding people to let heat out if they had a fever. Doctors used to do their rounds accompanied by a nurse with a single towel, which the doctor would use to dry his hands after examining each patient, leading to cross contamination, infection, and more often than not, death. And for decades, doctors have been working with the theory of 'give them a pint of blood and they'll be fine', and we're only just starting to learn how harmful THAT one can be!

Scientific theories are based on current human understanding - and as we progress as a race, we learn more about ourselves, and our environment. This often make us look back and go 'Wow, I can't believe we used to believe that - how naive!'

On the other hand, the Bible has never been wrong - the only problem comes when Man tries to put his own interpretation on it. It has a 100% track record, which is more than enough for me

[Nelle]

With evolution, like I said, I think that evolution and adaptation are two different things. I believe, like with breeding pug dogs, that we can lose genetic information to bring out certain traits in species. I believe things have changed through adaptation and mutation. I'm not sure about brand new genetic information that's never existed before evolving into being.

Is that incompatible with what you do Rachel? (*adds curious and not challenging emotion here*)

[Epacris]

Thanks for your kind and warm acknowledgment Berenice.

Yeah sure, we're are always learning and discovering new things but taking your medical example.... Throwing out "On the Origin of Species" for ecologists, would be like throwing out "Gray's Anatomy" for the medical profession.

Nelle, you are one of the kindest and gentlest people I know, you'd have to be a very hard nut to take something you said the wrong way. But I'll have to think about my answer, it's complicated (of course) and I'm not sure where to start. I'll BBL.

[Epacris]

Well you see Nelle, a mutation is brand new genetic information. Every time genes recombine they make little mistakes, mutations, this (as well as the actual recombination itself) is what creates genetic diversity. Within a randomly breeding population individuals will be different from each other. If environmental conditions change in some way (for example there is a new predator or disease or there is a change in the climate) the more variation there is within a population the higher the chance that some individuals will have characteristics that will help them survive in the changed conditions. All individuals that do not have the required characteristic do not successfully breed (or survive) and pass on their genes. A new population that exists in the changed conditions is founded by individuals that had the characteristic that was required for successful survival and reproduction, because they are the ones that passed on their genetic information.

If one species is split into multiple populations they may be experiencing different environmental conditions that drive this adaptation. Over a very long period of time, these different populations can become different species. Before they become different species there are lots of steps along the way and this is what I have experience in working with, distinct populations, subspecies, forms, varieties. Provence is a huge issue in the bush regeneration industry. When you revegetate an area, from where do you get the plant material you need to propagate the plants? How much material do you take to maximise genetic diversity? How can you ever hope to replicate a natural ecosystem (unfortunately, we can't even begin to come close but that's a whole other story ). At least by having an understanding of our ecological impact, we can understand how precious and irreplaceable the biodiversity that we have left is.

Ahhh far out Nelle, I fear I have made absolutely no sense at all.

And I just wanted to reiterate that for me evolution is not a belief, it just is. To me, saying "Do you believe in evolution?" would be like saying to a medical professional "Do you believe in Gray's Anatomy?".

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

But what if these mutations are just products of an imperfect world? We are not how Jehovah created us - even evolutionary theory agrees with that - so who's to say these different breeds and genetic variety aren't simply accidents, never intended to exist when Jehovah created the world?

I don't wanna come across as argumentative, I'm thoroughly enjoying this conversation - even if its giving me a headache

[Epacris]

Berenice, I dunno I TBH I don't really understand what you're talking about? Sorry. I'm just sharing, with anyone who is reading, my experience as a bushland manager (and teacher) and how endangered species, populations and ecosystems are managed. And I guess I would also like to say that I live and breathe this, I have dedicated my life and career to it. I'm happy to answer any questions, I’m not taking anything as argumentative, just genuinely interested.

[sneakysparkle]

Epacris - glad to have you join the discussion!

Now I'm not a scientist, but I do read.
I know that its not just Christians that dont agree with the theory of evolution - there are many credible scientists who have put their hand up to say they disagree with Darwin's theory.
What about "Icons of Evolution" - a book that debunks a lot of things that Darwin's theory are based on? (and I know there are many more!)
I understand that different people have different opinions on what 'evolution' really means, but if we are talking about Darwinism - it says that all living creatures are modified descendents of a common ancestor that lived long ago, that every new species that has ever appeared can be explained by descent with modification. That hasn't been proven!

[butterfly_warrior]

Epacris, it seems to me that evolution on that level is fine. But taking evolution as life spontaneously sprang out of the primordial soup and bacteria single-celled organisms suddenly became far more comples and humans descended from apes is a bit more... Extreme, I guess. The earlier one I would call adaptation - the differences are relatively small. The differences some claim in life evolving from nothing are huge and just implausible to me. I can accept one, I cannot accept the other.

BW