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I'm somewhat confused; I thought there were many self-professed Christians who also believed in evolution. Also, given that the Bible is read in a very differen

I'm somewhat confused; I thought there were many self-professed Christians who also believed in evolution. Also, given that the Bible is read in a very different cultural context today from the ones it was authored in, I assume one also needs faith in which interpretive lens (not quite the same as denomination, but not unrelated) to use? I see what you are saying about needing to take something as axiomatic, I just don't understand why you think the evolutionists have so many axioms and your axioms are altogether fewer? (I would also maybe take issue with your view on falsifying scientific theory but I think that's a distraction from more interesting issues maybe?)

bigstrat2003 2y ago
> I thought there were many self-professed Christians who also believed in evolution. There are. I myself am one. I don't know nearly enough about biology to be able to say whether the theory of evolution is true, so I default to "trust the people who study this for a living". But there's no reason that God couldn't have used natural processes like evolution to enact his vision for the world, so to me there's no conflict at all with my faith.
nickpsecurity 2y ago
There are. They usually aren’t committed to following the text when it conflicts with their current culture, though. Some are with an interpretation that’s different from the older ones. Likely an error given God promised to help us interpret His Word with the gift of teaching. So, why wouldn’t we believe it Biblically? First, God describes creation like He did it personally in Genesis. He describes everything up to the Fall of humanity in Gen. 1-3. It’s here because I’ll reference it a few times: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201-3&version=ESV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201-3&v... First, in Gen. 1:11-13, God creates the plants on Earth before creating the stars and moon. They aren’t getting energy from the Sun in photosynthesis. That contradicts the scientific model of how life formed. Second, God doesn’t create us from the animals. He describes it like He made us from scratch. Were the most important thing to Him, made in His image. He describes it elsewhere like a Potter shaping a piece of clay into what He imagines. He does it for each of us through natural processes He directs but originally sculpted the entire person. Third, He says it was six days with resting on the seventh day. The way the word is used in Hebrew is how they usually do a 24-hour day. In the New Testament, writers aided by the Holy Spirit reference it like it was a 24-day day. Fourth, there is no death on Earth at this point. God made us to love Him, love each other, and enjoy this world. He blessed them with life. Humanity’s betrayal of God, where every human ever born chooses to commit evil acts, results in God punishing us with the curses in Genesis 3 (and 4). Death itself, with a lifespan of 120 years, is a curse He introduces into a deathless world. He’ll later counter death by giving us life by faith in Jesus Christ our God. This contradicts evolution where death creates people from other animals. If anything, evolution glorifies death because evolutionists believe it’s one of the main drivers of biological progress. Fifth, God’s Word indicates there’s different “kinds,” or categories, of creatures that He may have fixed. It’s a bit higher than a species in current taxonomy. While creatures adapt, we’ve actually not seen these categories of animals change into other animals despite billions of animals in captivity. God’s Word is holding up while evolution is refuted by billions of data points. Sixth, we see what we’d call an explosion of life where fully-formed creatures show up with no parents. Later, there’s a global Flood, which built up over time, which would cause other catastrophes if driven by or paired with geological events. That would cause mass extinctions while dropping fossils in layers on the Earth. Evolution instead predicted continuous streams of small adaptations from the tiniest animals to the most complex. We saw virtually no transitional fossils despite evolution requiring piles of them everywhere for the multitude of observed species. Supporting God’s Word, we do see life disappearing in mass extinctions, life appearing out of nowhere in mass (eg Cambrian explosion), evidence of catastrophes, and rapid shifts in geography of some areas. Lastly, God’s Word describes our creation as a story of how He made us for Himself, we all chose evil, rejected Him, and He pursued us to redeem us. That He loved us so much He gave His Son, Jesus Christ, for us who died and rose again to set free all who repent and believe in Him. This helps us empirically. Human creators rapidly design their artificial universes or movie sets using their own technology to get to the point of the story they’re trying to tell. They don’t evolve them over billions of years within the laws and timeline of their creation. God rapidly creating His movie set in six days, but then letting it play out within its own laws, is exactly how most human creations operate. Empirically, God’s Word shows a Creator that uses principles like all observed creators with good, logical reason for a quick creation, too. So, there’s some ways God’s Word contradicts macro-evolution as origin of life. It doesn’t contradict diversification within categories. We’ve observed that. God’s Word also tells us to protect all individual lives, loving each as ourselves. Each individual’s life has purpose. Godless, amoral evolution encourages things like eugenics or genocide to “improve” our species or accomplish the selfish goals of those in power. Nothing really matters either. So, evolution combined with other beliefs contradict both the truths in and righteous goals of God’s Word.

bigstrat2003 2y ago

> I thought there were many self-professed Christians who also believed in evolution. There are. I myself am one. I don't know nearly enough about biology to be able to say whether the theory of evolution is true, so I default to "trust the people who study this for a living". But there's no reason that God couldn't have used natural processes like evolution to enact his vision for the world, so to me there's no conflict at all with my faith.

nickpsecurity 2y ago

There are. They usually aren’t committed to following the text when it conflicts with their current culture, though. Some are with an interpretation that’s different from the older ones. Likely an error given God promised to help us interpret His Word with the gift of teaching. So, why wouldn’t we believe it Biblically? First, God describes creation like He did it personally in Genesis. He describes everything up to the Fall of humanity in Gen. 1-3. It’s here because I’ll reference it a few times: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201-3&version=ESV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201-3&v... First, in Gen. 1:11-13, God creates the plants on Earth before creating the stars and moon. They aren’t getting energy from the Sun in photosynthesis. That contradicts the scientific model of how life formed. Second, God doesn’t create us from the animals. He describes it like He made us from scratch. Were the most important thing to Him, made in His image. He describes it elsewhere like a Potter shaping a piece of clay into what He imagines. He does it for each of us through natural processes He directs but originally sculpted the entire person. Third, He says it was six days with resting on the seventh day. The way the word is used in Hebrew is how they usually do a 24-hour day. In the New Testament, writers aided by the Holy Spirit reference it like it was a 24-day day. Fourth, there is no death on Earth at this point. God made us to love Him, love each other, and enjoy this world. He blessed them with life. Humanity’s betrayal of God, where every human ever born chooses to commit evil acts, results in God punishing us with the curses in Genesis 3 (and 4). Death itself, with a lifespan of 120 years, is a curse He introduces into a deathless world. He’ll later counter death by giving us life by faith in Jesus Christ our God. This contradicts evolution where death creates people from other animals. If anything, evolution glorifies death because evolutionists believe it’s one of the main drivers of biological progress. Fifth, God’s Word indicates there’s different “kinds,” or categories, of creatures that He may have fixed. It’s a bit higher than a species in current taxonomy. While creatures adapt, we’ve actually not seen these categories of animals change into other animals despite billions of animals in captivity. God’s Word is holding up while evolution is refuted by billions of data points. Sixth, we see what we’d call an explosion of life where fully-formed creatures show up with no parents. Later, there’s a global Flood, which built up over time, which would cause other catastrophes if driven by or paired with geological events. That would cause mass extinctions while dropping fossils in layers on the Earth. Evolution instead predicted continuous streams of small adaptations from the tiniest animals to the most complex. We saw virtually no transitional fossils despite evolution requiring piles of them everywhere for the multitude of observed species. Supporting God’s Word, we do see life disappearing in mass extinctions, life appearing out of nowhere in mass (eg Cambrian explosion), evidence of catastrophes, and rapid shifts in geography of some areas. Lastly, God’s Word describes our creation as a story of how He made us for Himself, we all chose evil, rejected Him, and He pursued us to redeem us. That He loved us so much He gave His Son, Jesus Christ, for us who died and rose again to set free all who repent and believe in Him. This helps us empirically. Human creators rapidly design their artificial universes or movie sets using their own technology to get to the point of the story they’re trying to tell. They don’t evolve them over billions of years within the laws and timeline of their creation. God rapidly creating His movie set in six days, but then letting it play out within its own laws, is exactly how most human creations operate. Empirically, God’s Word shows a Creator that uses principles like all observed creators with good, logical reason for a quick creation, too. So, there’s some ways God’s Word contradicts macro-evolution as origin of life. It doesn’t contradict diversification within categories. We’ve observed that. God’s Word also tells us to protect all individual lives, loving each as ourselves. Each individual’s life has purpose. Godless, amoral evolution encourages things like eugenics or genocide to “improve” our species or accomplish the selfish goals of those in power. Nothing really matters either. So, evolution combined with other beliefs contradict both the truths in and righteous goals of God’s Word.