Possible to unit Darwin and Christ ?

[livi]

Before you start complaining - I am not eager to beat that dead horse ones more. We have been there and there is no winner / loser.

No, I was thinking in a broader sense. With a little humility and open mind, would it some how be possible to unit the two teams / theories into one ? Could Darwin and Christ play in the same team, with a joint supporter club ?

As an example: Let us propose God started the whole thing (mess?) in the beginning. He made it possible for the very first life forms to evolve. From this point the natural selection postulates of Darwin come into play, perhaps with Him partly supervising and intervening at times ?

OK, I am in an exhausted, naive Friday night mode. But semi-seriously at least - what´s your take?

[vash]

i think it is a simple matter of one God day = 1million human years. we just cant get the units right.

[john walker's workshop]

they're already united. ever see the fish with darwin inside?

[Nathans_Dad]

Livi, you have essentially come upon my personal theory for the origin of life. If you look at things from God's perspective (or at least try to) things actually start to make sense. Here goes:

I see the Genesis story as God's attempt to explain his creation to man in a way that we can understand. Who says how long a "day" is to God? Why does a day have to be 24 hours? I would think that a day to God could be any amount of time he desired. Therefore there is plenty of time for dinosaurs to emerge and die off, humans to emerge, etc.

I do not subscribe to the idea that God made man and all the animals in 48 hours. I think evolution IS God's method of creation. The Bible says God created man in his own image...it does not say HOW he created man.

Even though Steven Hawking is staunchly anti-God, I find some striking resemblances between his theories on how the universe began and God. For example, Hawking talks about the time before the big bang. Actually time didn't apparently exist at that point so call it whatever you want. He talks about all the matter in the universe being packed into a small area, he calls it a "singularity". Hrm...a singularity which existed outside of time and space as we know it. A singularity which exists outside of the bounds of physics as we know it. A singularity from which the entire universe arose. To me, that sounds an awful lot like God...

[Moneyguy1]

I have read most of Dr. Hawking's books and do not see him as anti anything. Did I miss something somewhere?

I think someone can believe in science and believe in a Creator with no internal dissention. A creator will do what a Creator does, and we do not have the brainpower to comprehend.

[kang]

Most reasonable minds don’t think that Darwin and Genesis contradict each other at all. Even the Pope has said this. The general idea is that Genesis is just a metaphor for what actually happened. It was never meant to be a scientific explanation of all the exact details. Darwin, or evolution, is the scientific explanation of part of the sequence (the part with life, not the part with creating the planets, day and night, etc).

However, there are those who insist on taking every word in the bible literally. They will forever believe that god created the universe in six 24 hour days.

You will never convince these people that Genesis is a metaphor and that Darwin and Genesis can co-exist without contradicting each other. Their minds are just too closed to accept that.

[VaSteve]

Originally posted by Nathans_Dad

Even though Steven Hawking is staunchly anti-God,

Can you blame him? Even as a non-scientist?

I heard livi/vash's theory a long while back in church of all places and it works for me. The people that can't accept all this are the ones I don't get... I went to the Natural History museam the other day.

They have 100 year old dinosaur models...made up of parts that a MILLIONS of years old. I can't even comprehend how long a million years is, let alone 10 million years. As an adult I was suprised about how many of the displays said "scientists believe..." * There is so much about the history of this planet that we don't know...how could we possibly expect to succently explain it within the past couple hundred years.


* The funny one for me was the 2 horned tricerotops. It's the only one they ever found. What makes me laugh is...maybe it was just a birth defect and we're all puzzled by why there isn't any others....

[VaSteve]

Originally posted by kang

However, there are those who insist on taking every word in the bible literally. They will forever believe that god created the universe in six 24 hour days.

Anyone who believes a literal reading of the Bible has obviously never worked on a corporate report! No matter minor the report, look at the editing of it...everyone needs to get their 2 cents. Then take the bible which has been translated for 2000 years. It's a wonder it's close to the original at all.

I don't know about the Torah in the original Hebrew. Then again, that's only part of what we know as the "Bible". Don't they occasionally find "new books" that are subsequentally discredited? Yeesh.

[jmaxwell]

I recently read a book on the subject that gave me a lot of food for thought...

Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution: by Kenneth R. Miller.

Mr Miller compares notes with quite a few current authors on both sides of the question.

Jack

[m21sniper]

Originally posted by Moneyguy1
I have read most of Dr. Hawking's books and do not see him as anti anything. Did I miss something somewhere?

I think someone can believe in science and believe in a Creator with no internal dissention. A creator will do what a Creator does, and we do not have the brainpower to comprehend.

Stephen Hawking states outright that he believes in a God...or at least he did in his first book.

[IROC]

Originally posted by livi
Could Darwin and Christ play in the same team, with a joint supporter club ?

I say why should they? If you're using the name "Darwin" to represent science or a naturalistic view of the world and "Christ" to denote a religious or supernatural view of the world, then I would submit that there is no reason to put alot of effort into trying to put forth a hypothesis that comforts the beliefs of two opposing camps. Either your hypothesis (natural vs supernatural) is correct or it's not.

IMHO, people have only elected to adopt modified versions of Genesis because the literal versions are so obviously wrong. Adopting a modified version (that somehow seems to allow "Darwin" and "Christ" to be buddies) is merely an attempt to recognize the realities of the evidence around us while clinging to the supernatural comfort blanket that religions provide.

Mike

[IROC]

Originally posted by m21sniper
Stephen Hawking states outright that he believes in a God...or at least he did in his first book.

He might believe in a god in the same way that Einstein believed in a god, but I doubt he's talking about the Christian god.

Mike

[m21sniper]

No, he is definitely not talking about any religions god, so you are definitely correct there. He merely states he believes in some creator, but does not claim to know his nature or origin.

Which is basically my view on the subject. If the theory works for the smartest man on earth, it works for me too.

If you put a gun to my head and forced me to describe the nature of God, my GUESS would be that God and Mother nature are one in the same. Simply put, God is the rulebook that governs the physical universe(s).

[Moneyguy1]

Which, of course, begs the question:

Does God belong to any one religion?

I wonder what God has to say about those who think they are getting preferential treatment.

[Nathans_Dad]

Originally posted by VaSteve
Then take the bible which has been translated for 2000 years. It's a wonder it's close to the original at all.

Actually the Dead Sea Scrolls showed the current translation of the Bible to be remarkably accurate. I think the Bible is a mixture of literal truth, allegory and metaphor. The translation survives though.

[trekkor]

Originally posted by Moneyguy1
Which, of course, begs the question:

Does God belong to any one religion?

I wonder what God has to say about those who think they are getting preferential treatment.

Science can and will take you to a point where theory becomes fact.
The earth is "round" and orbits the sun, for example.

Anyone who belongs to a religion that doesn't think/can't prove it is the TRUE religion is wasting their time.

If you don't believe in God and can't prove that, same boat.

KT

[trekkor]

Originally posted by Nathans_Dad
Actually the Dead Sea Scrolls showed the current translation of the Bible to be remarkably accurate.

Yes, most people do not realize that the discovered "book of Isaiah" only has some minor spelling errors from hand copying compared to modern copies.

There is a reason why the Bible survives to this day.



KT

[john70t]

Originally posted by m21sniper

If you put a gun to my head and forced me to describe the nature of God, my GUESS would be that God and Mother nature are one in the same. Simply put, God is the rulebook that governs the physical universe(s).

+1.

The difficulty I've had in accepting any organized religeon are my personal theorums:
1) If God is the almighty, how can mankind speak for him or claim to harness and use his powers?
2) If God first created the universe, and then the world, and then all the creatures within as a utopian Eden, why is mankind destroying it (hundreds of species per day in the Amazon)?
Were we predestined to populate other planets before we had trashed this one?
3) If mankind was created in the image of a male God, was it supposed to be pygmies with testicular elephantitis or Wang Zhi-zhi?
Females technically are the creators and nurturers. Just add one good cell.

We are just now learning about quarks and anti-matter and multiple forms of energy that make up the universe, so concepts like spirits and telekenesis may someday be scientifically proovable to a degree.

[skipdup]

Originally posted by trekkor
Science can and will take you to a point where theory becomes fact.
The earth is "round" and orbits the sun, for example.

Anyone who belongs to a religion that doesn't think/can't prove it is the TRUE religion is wasting their time.

If you don't believe in God and can't prove that, same boat.

KT

So, we can't believe anything until it is "proven"?

How long did it take, after people started theorizing that the earth was round, for there to be absolute proof it was indeed round?

Were the theorizers wrong in the time between when they "believed" the earth was round and the time it was proven factual?

How many things, throughout time, were thought to be a scientific "fact", only to be later debunked by new science/theory/advancement?

- Skip

[trekkor]

Were the theorizers wrong in the time between when they "believed" the earth was round and the time it was proven factual?

The Bible noted the shape of the earth long before it was a "fact".
Nothing in the Bible has been proven to be false.
In fact, man eventually "discovers" what is contained therein as reliable in his own time.
Shouldn't this tell you something?

It never said a day is 24 hours, BTW. That is something man came up with.


KT