Christians who believe in evolution

[thelionheart]

Hello all,

please pardon me for this topic (being a theist following another religion), however it's a thought that I was unable to keep to myself.

Many Catholic Christians believe in evolution. However doesn't evolution imply that there were no Adam and Eve, and no original sin for Jesus to have to die to save us from it ?

[Helm]

Adam and Eve can read read metaphorically. It wasn't really taken particularly literally in the time of Jesus either.

[basics]

" Adam and Eve can read read metaphorically. It wasn't really taken particularly literally in the time of Jesus either. "

Helm,

Once more may I point you in the direction of Romans and Hebrews where you will find what the Jews thought and what they should have thought and known. But let's look at what Jesus said to His chief enemy, ole Nick. " Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that cometh from out of the mouth of God."

God says in Genesis that He made all things in six days. These words were those given to Moses for a specific reason and that reason was so that the people understood quite simply how the world and the rest of the universe was made. It is not in any way figurative and was never meant to be that for in it we are given time broken down into its elements of days, morning and evening, seasons in months and years which is still the highest measurement of time.

The very principle that caused the fall was that Eve and Adam failed for two reasons, the first being that the power of Satan persuaded Eve that God word was in effect worthless, He didn't really mean what He said and second by believing or accepting that little deposit disobeyed God by eating the fruit. This is important for all to understand about Scripture because God is telling us all what happens when one doesn't believe Him.

The result was that the twosome and all their offspring were cursed. Why it is inherent is that to the third and fourth generation it flows until lifted but it has never been lifted as each generation applies it to the next meaning that none are ever good and that all fall short of the glory of God. Indeed at the curse God made the first prophetic statement regarding this when He intimated the intentions of the " seed " who Himself only could take men out of their predicament.

There was to be only one way to eradicate the curse, that by one event and individually given. The rest of Genesis is all about how that begins to unravel in the lives of men. By nature fallen man is beyond reconciliation to God yet as Jesus said with God these things are perfectly possible and so they are for any on whom the hand of God has rested, for whom the precious blood was shed and to whom their sin is no longer remembered by God through Jesus Christ, they know.

Now it may have been that they too believed in evolutionary circles but I tell you all, that a born again Christian cannot believe these things any more. We only have to look to all the men and women of the Bible to see that God, His word, is uppermost in their regenerate minds. It cannot be any other way. The Spirit of God who indwells them would never allow it simply because His main effort is to glorify Jesus Christ who is God, the Maker of all things in the six days that He had printed by Moses, and their regeneration authenticates that.

[SPECTREtm]

Adam and Eve can read read metaphorically. It wasn't really taken particularly literally in the time of Jesus either.

Ah yes, the religious apologist argument no.1...

[Helm]

Ah yes, the religious apologist argument no.1...

The literal interpretation of Genesis as a scientific explanation only came about in the modern period. People still thought God had designed life in some way, and perhaps he still has. Evolution may not be completely entirely random but have direction.

[Ancient Aliens]

The literal interpretation of Genesis as a scientific explanation only came about in the modern period. People still thought God had designed life in some way, and perhaps he still has. Evolution may not be completely entirely random but have direction.

Oh? Give me an example of this "evolutionary direction".

[Helm]

Oh? Give me an example of this "evolutionary direction".

The process that ultimately resulted in the evolution of ourselves and most likely other beings much like us began 13.7 billion years ago. The whole entire universe is an "evolutionary direction". You begin with something simple and build greater and greater complexity. And we are somehow part of this system. The reason why the universe exists is ultimately something to do with this apparent fact, imo.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems: and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other, he hath placed those systems at immense distances from one another.
This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God …, Or Universal Ruler; for God is a relative word, and has a respect to servants; and Deity is the dominion of God not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants. The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God; for we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords; but we do not say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of Gods; we do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect: these are titles which have no respect to servants. The word God usually signifies Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present. He endures forever, and is everywhere present; and, by existing always and everywhere, he constitutes duration and space. Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is everywhere, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot be never and nowhere. Every soul that has perception is, though in different times and in different organs of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person. There are given successive parts in duration, coexistent parts in space, but neither the one nor the other in the person of a man, or his thinking principle; and much less can they be found in the thinking substance of God. Every man, so far as he is a thing that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole life, in all and each of his organs of sense. God is the same God, always and everywhere. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In him** are all things contained and moved; yet neither affects the other: God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he exists always and everywhere. Whence also he is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to understand, and to act; but in a manner not at all human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a manner utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things. He is utterly void of all body and bodily figure, and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard, nor touched; nor ought he to be worshiped under the representation of any corporeal thing. We have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of anything is we know not. In bodies, we see only their figures and colors, we hear only the sounds, we touch only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells, and taste the savors; but their inward substances are not to be known either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds: much less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God. We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes; we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion: for we adore him as his servants; and a god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing. But, by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give, to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build; for all our notions of God are taken from the ways of mankind by a certain similitude, which, though not perfect, has some likeness, however. And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy.”

[XIII]

Ah yes, the religious apologist argument no.1...

Helm is right though...

[XIII]

Yeah, what he said. Being Christian doesn't imply that I therefore have to be literalist and innerrantist about the Bible.

[thelionheart]

You've missed the point. What I meant was, given that Adam and Eve didn't exist, this means that the original sin was not done and so Jesus's sacrifice for our inherited sin was pointless. I have only recently began to watch Arabic christian videos so please excuse any misunderstanding I have of your faith.

[XIII]

You've missed the point. What I meant was, given that Adam and Eve didn't exist, this means that the original sin was not done and so Jesus's sacrifice for our inherited sin was pointless. I have only recently began to watch Arabic christian videos so please excuse any misunderstanding I have of your faith.

No problem. See, original sin isn't even a fundamental Christian doctrine. Plenty of Christian sects don't have it.

[Monarchist]

No problem. See, original sin isn't even a fundamental Christian doctrine. Plenty of Christian sects don't have it.

It's a fundamental Christian doctrine for those who aren't schismatic infidel heretic apostates.

The holy Roman Catholic Church being my religion, I think it fitting to reply. For one, the holy God might simply have directed evolution up to a point where a human male and a human female came to exist simultaneously as the premiere representatives of our branch of the taxonomy. It's not an impossible notion, as I'm sure the multitude of lifeforms on Earth sprang up randomly in pairs at some point in the evolutionary chronology. Things like this can happen, given the wondrous nature of the Universe. Now, if Adam and Eve were merely the first male and female humans, what stops them from having plunged us into original sin?

It may be difficult for me to say much here, because the gnostics, Orthodox, evangelicals, atheists, and agnostics will just bombard the position into smithereens. My poor little bunker won't hold out long against the massive hatred that exists for Catholic religion in so many quarters.

Let us say the two were the first humans, and God halted the effects of aging on them. Time does, itself, not truly exist since it is only a measuring stick for changes in space. If God halted change in those human bodies and the entire area of their habitation, 'time' would effectively cease. Somehow, I suppose, free will would have been preserved, and the humans might have asked God to free them from this circumstance at any interval. As to Adam & Eve living for 900+ years, why can't time be retroactively applied after the Fall from Eden (outside time)? Perhaps they lived in Eden for what would be 900 years of Earthly time (as evolution continued on), and lived out here making babies for only 30 years or so.

Stranger things have happened in black holes and around pulsars...

[thelionheart]

Stranger things have happened in black holes and around pulsars..

true

[Ancient Aliens]

I do want to point out that the story of Noah's Ark is void if a Christian was to accept the theory of evolution - yet another contortion to survive in an ever advancing, scientific world.

[XIII]

It's a fundamental Christian doctrine for those who aren't schismatic infidel heretic apostates.

Well, yeah. Still, there's certainly room for reflection here unlike, say, the Resurrection which is just utterly, utterly non-negotiable.

PS. I'm a Catholic too.

[Col. Tartleton]

Well, yeah. Still, there's certainly room for reflection here unlike, say, the Resurrection which is just utterly, utterly non-negotiable.

PS. I'm a Catholic too.

Yeah because then you'd be drinking the blood of ritually slaughtered infants with all your Jewish friends. Just as Jesus intended before the Roman's beat the crap out of him and then stuck metal bits through him for lols after they gambled for his garments and dignity. There are worse ways to die than the ordeal of crucifixion, but not many. Odds are whatever they are they've been done to Jews.



Of course we all know they edited his shtick so now it's wine and bread even though it's clear from some of the the bible Jesus didn't drink wine since he made a Nazarite vow. Which is true. Jesus was sober except for smoking a ton of pot. Which is why I'd cast James Franco for my version of the Jesus Story.

http://www.cannabisculture.com/backi...11/christ.html

[Helm]

You've missed the point. What I meant was, given that Adam and Eve didn't exist, this means that the original sin was not done and so Jesus's sacrifice for our inherited sin was pointless. I have only recently began to watch Arabic christian videos so please excuse any misunderstanding I have of your faith.

I think the story has something more to do with the nature of freewill and human suffering in an imperfect world. Though to me Jesus saves mankind from ignorance and not so much sin.

[Manco]

Many Catholic Christians believe in evolution.

Not just many. if you don't accept the Theory of Evolution, you're in direct contradiction to official RCC doctrine.

As for the Adam and Eve bit. I think the RCC and most other churches are kinda confused about what's to be taken literal and what allegorical.

[thelionheart]

No problem. See, original sin isn't even a fundamental Christian doctrine. Plenty of Christian sects don't have it.

But does the mainstream. Because in the videos I watched here it is clear that they do.

I think the story has something more to do with the nature of freewill and human suffering in an imperfect world. Though to me Jesus saves mankind from ignorance and not so much sin.

Not just many. if you don't accept the Theory of Evolution, you're in direct contradiction to official RCC doctrine.

I stand corrected

As for the Adam and Eve bit. I think the RCC and most other churches are kinda confused about what's to be taken literal and what allegorical.

Confused

[Himster]

Much of the old testament is a story of the spiritual world, for instance there was no earthly garden of eden and there never was a flood that covered the whole world.

Evolution is as undeniable as gravity, I don't see the problem.