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Evolution and creationism can co-exist. In fact that's the position of the Catholic Church. Wikipedia has an explanation [0] and the positions of former Popes.

Evolution and creationism can co-exist. In fact that's the position of the Catholic Church. Wikipedia has an explanation [0] and the positions of former Popes. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution

rorrr2 13y ago
If you ignore facts, they surely can.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  They believe evolution just like you. They also believe it everything had to start somewhere and for them that's God. What facts would they be ignoring?
  - ddeck 13y ago
    Most of them. Evolution and Creationism present two diametrically opposed explanations for how the current state of life on the Earth came to be. To suggest that they can happily coexist is disingenuous. Certainly it's possible for religion and evolution to be reconciled. If and where the specific religion has views on how the conditions for evolution came to be and who "designed" the physical laws etc. But Catholicism certainly doesn't qualify in this regard.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - opinali 13y ago
    Catholicism just absorbed the Big Bang (and even Darwinism) as another part of their dogma. Stephen Hawking tells how John Paul II once admonished him about new alternative theories that might interpret the big bang as "not really the beginning", such as the cyclic model, or Hoyle's steady state model, or multiverses, etc. Not different at all from previous popes approving current science like Ptolemy's and Aristotle's, making theology compatible with that, but then expecting the science to remain fixed. In fact, even the traditional Big Bang theory never states that the big bang was an absolute beginning from absolutely nothing. Quite the opposite. But I think creationists can still accept it as long as the "pre-bang" state is highly chaotic (no organized matter; no time arrow as consequence of maximum entropy, etc.). All religious texts have this idea of a Great Chaos before the primordial god started the creation. But we may end up finding that the correct model is something like local big bangs, where each universe sprouts out from an older universe. This leaves zero opportunity for a creator, not even a Cartesian first-mover.
mjlangiii 13y ago
Thanks for the link, I never realized that about Catholicism. I guess my position has always been similar; I don't see any conflict between evolution and the Bible. Evolutionary theory has no special tenet that God does not exist. The Bible's creation story may or may not be literal but it has no special tenet that the world was created such that it doesn't have a complete history, e.g. cut down a tree in the garden of Eden and I'd expect it to have tree rings showing its age or dig up some fossils and find dinosaurs, Adam's ancestors, etc. Everyone seems like they'd feel more comfortable if these were mutually exclusive but I personally see no reason for them to be mutually exclusive. Feel free to correct me if I'm overlooking something major.

rorrr2 13y ago

If you ignore facts, they surely can.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
They believe evolution just like you. They also believe it everything had to start somewhere and for them that's God. What facts would they be ignoring?
- ddeck 13y ago
  Most of them. Evolution and Creationism present two diametrically opposed explanations for how the current state of life on the Earth came to be. To suggest that they can happily coexist is disingenuous. Certainly it's possible for religion and evolution to be reconciled. If and where the specific religion has views on how the conditions for evolution came to be and who "designed" the physical laws etc. But Catholicism certainly doesn't qualify in this regard.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- opinali 13y ago
  Catholicism just absorbed the Big Bang (and even Darwinism) as another part of their dogma. Stephen Hawking tells how John Paul II once admonished him about new alternative theories that might interpret the big bang as "not really the beginning", such as the cyclic model, or Hoyle's steady state model, or multiverses, etc. Not different at all from previous popes approving current science like Ptolemy's and Aristotle's, making theology compatible with that, but then expecting the science to remain fixed. In fact, even the traditional Big Bang theory never states that the big bang was an absolute beginning from absolutely nothing. Quite the opposite. But I think creationists can still accept it as long as the "pre-bang" state is highly chaotic (no organized matter; no time arrow as consequence of maximum entropy, etc.). All religious texts have this idea of a Great Chaos before the primordial god started the creation. But we may end up finding that the correct model is something like local big bangs, where each universe sprouts out from an older universe. This leaves zero opportunity for a creator, not even a Cartesian first-mover.

mjlangiii 13y ago

Thanks for the link, I never realized that about Catholicism. I guess my position has always been similar; I don't see any conflict between evolution and the Bible. Evolutionary theory has no special tenet that God does not exist. The Bible's creation story may or may not be literal but it has no special tenet that the world was created such that it doesn't have a complete history, e.g. cut down a tree in the garden of Eden and I'd expect it to have tree rings showing its age or dig up some fossils and find dinosaurs, Adam's ancestors, etc. Everyone seems like they'd feel more comfortable if these were mutually exclusive but I personally see no reason for them to be mutually exclusive. Feel free to correct me if I'm overlooking something major.