Best reason not to trust evolution theory

Tim Robbins

Hi,
I accept evolution theory.
In the Spirit of objectivity, I'd like to ask the question, what is your best reason not to trust evolution theory?
Here's a good one, how can we trust fossil evidence after the piltdown man fiasco?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_man

How many references does Richard Dawkins give that?

Zombrex

I would imagine on the top of the list (since this is a religious forum) should be that the Bible states that God created the human species as Adam and Eve in a garden in modern day Iraq, and that all mankind comes their offspring.

I don't think anyone would argue the Bible doesn't say that. So the question is how does one interpret that. Is it literal? Is it a metaphor? Is it a myth? Is it a mistake? How one views evolutionary theory, and all science for that matter, will depending on how one views those passages.

Tim Robbins

Wicknight wrote:

I would imagine on the top of the list (since this is a religious forum) should be that the Bible states that God created the human species as Adam and Eve in a garden in modern day Iraq, and that all mankind comes their offspring.

I don't think anyone would argue the Bible doesn't say that. So the question is how does one interpret that. Is it literal? Is it a metaphor? Is it a myth? Is it a mistake? How one views evolutionary theory, and all science for that matter, will depending on how one views those passages.

Is that when the tale when the snake starts talking?
Yes I've heard that one.

robindch

> Here's a good one, how can we trust fossil evidence after
> the piltdown man fiasco?

While it's not very relevant to this forum, it's a question which is worth answering:

1. Piltdown happened over ninety years ago and was revealed as a hoax over fifty years ago. Dating methods have developed since the early 1900's and standards of evidence have been tightened considerably.
2. Piltdown was not subjected to proper peer-review because the bones were locked away and external examination was not permitted. This would not be permitted today.
3. Piltdown was one tiny example and was treated from the start with considerable skepticism by many people, especially people outside the UK who found its discovery in the UK (previously not known for such things) suspicious in the extreme.
4. The guy who discovered it was an amateur, not a professional, biologist.
5. There a millions and millions of other fossil remains -- they clog museums, universities and private collections all over the world -- which clearly demonstrate that things change over geological time.

While it's a valid question to ask, I would say that ignoring modern fossil evidence because of Piltdown is a bit like avoiding modern ships because of the Titanic.

> How many references does Richard Dawkins give that?

None that I can think of in TGD, because it's not relevant to his assertion that god is a piece of wishful thinking. Piltdown (as you can see from the creation thread) is something that now only concern creationists. Everybody else has moved on long ago.

There's a short page on the Piltdown hoax here:

http://skepdic.com/piltdown.html

which contains links to more extensive ones including this exhaustive one:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/piltdown.html

...which should answer any other questions you may have on it.

robindch

> what is your best reason not to trust evolution theory?

...and in the spirit of this forum, I'd imagine that Wicknight has put his finger on it -- a religious believer wouldn't trust the evidence of biology because it conflicts with their own interpretation of the book of genesis.

BTW, if the story of Adam and Eve is false, then it becomes very difficult to pin down the idea of "original sin" and how that could have any meaning in an evolutionary world -- at what point did humans become "sinful" and how was it decided? It's a position I'd be interested to hear a non-creationist religious believer defend.

Suff

Tim Robbins wrote:

what is your best reason not to trust evolution theory?

GOD {Allah, Elōah,Elohim, The one GOD} is the Mighty Creator, if he wanted to create a human would he create a monkey/Ape and then leave it for millions of years to develop into a human?? then connect with it?
If GOD wanted to create anything he would just say:"Be!" and it shall be done.


Man Is Perfect, the human brain in the most amazing, Vast, baffling, Complex creation of GOD

BrianCalgary

Well Robin, scofflaw, wicknight, et al. I have spent time pondering this whole topic, mainly because of you guys, and here I go.

I accept the biblical account of creation because I can not reconcile evolution and the NT's references to Adam and Eve as historical figures. It then comes down to who do I trust more, the scientific community as it relates to this topic (I have great trust in other disciplines of science) or Jesus, who witnessed the event? I go with Jesus.

robindch wrote:

BTW, if the story of Adam and Eve is false, then it becomes very difficult to pin down the idea of "original sin" and how that could have any meaning in an evolutionary world -- at what point did humans become "sinful" and how was it decided? It's a position I'd be interested to hear a non-creationist religious believer defend.

As for evolution and original sin. If God was the catalyst for evolutionary process' and created everything in this manner, He created us all with the abilitry to know and understand right from wrong, a built in moral compass. He gave us the parable of Genesis creation so that we would know that sin and evil exists.

For emphasis the law was given through Moses, this was done to show us that we can not possibly live our lives to God's standards of righteousness and are in need of a saviuor.

Tim Robbins

Suff wrote:

GOD {Allah, Elōah,Elohim, The one GOD} is the Mighty Creator, if he wanted to create a human would he create a monkey/Ape and then leave it for millions of years to develop into a human?? then connect with it?
If GOD wanted to create anything he would just say:"Be!" and it shall be done.


Man Is Perfect, the human brain in the most amazing, Vast, baffling, Complex creation of GOD

Yes but both could have happened. Evolution could have happened and the humans that came from that could have met up with Adam and Eve when they were created.

Suff

Tim Robbins wrote:

Evolution could have happened and the humans that came from that could have met up with Adam and Eve when they were created.

But Adam was ment to be the First human ever to be created! what would be the point of creating a perfect, full human and then make more out of the evolution process? Evolution is there I do accept it when it comes to animals and so on but humans,...we are ment to be the favored creation therefore we were given superior brains/intelligence and the message of God {religion}

Owen

Tim Robbins wrote:

Is that when the tale when the snake starts talking?
Yes I've heard that one.

You should hear the one about the talking shrubbery!

Saruman

My question is this. According to the bible Adam was the first man. Then God created Eve. Nowhere does it say he created anyone else so it was Adam and Eve and he left them to get on with it. They had 2 sons, Cain and able. Cain kills able leaving 3 humans to populate the earth. Cain fecks off to the land of Nod and meets up with the people there and i believe he married there.
Whats wrong with this scenario? The numbers do not seem to match up when it comes to nod

If there is a God, and remember we are told that to God, time has no meaning.. so God seing "be" and we are just there is rubbish. Billions of years pass to us but to a being outside of time it means nothing.

I do not even know why people think they can trust the Bible as the word of God? I mean God did not write it! People wrote it over the course of centuries. Its a collection of different writings from different people at different times thrown together into one volume. Then translated and revised hundreds of times over. I wonder what the original version of Genesis before any translation, any revision or changes whatsoever looked like. Might have explained the concept of evolution for all we know but it was too hard a concept to understand when it was written so it was put in simpler language.


Anyway thats my thought on the matter. I believe in evolution, though its very possible that a God of some sort (if you want to call it that) initiated the whole process.

BrianCalgary

Saruman wrote:

My question is this. According to the bible Adam was the first man. Then God created Eve. Nowhere does it say he created anyone else so it was Adam and Eve and he left them to get on with it. They had 2 sons, Cain and able. Cain kills able leaving 3 humans to populate the earth. Cain fecks off to the land of Nod and meets up with the people there and i believe he married there.
Whats wrong with this scenario? The numbers do not seem to match up when it comes to nod .

Adam and Eve had more than just the two children. The Bible just doesn't mention them because they aren't relevant to the story.

I have just read the match report on manutd.com, the report only mentions 5 MU players and 4 Ason Villa players, it doesn't mean that only 9 players were involved in the match but that only 9 were relevant in this telling of the event.

Saruman wrote:

I do not even know why people think they can trust the Bible as the word of God? I mean God did not write it! People wrote it over the course of centuries. Its a collection of different writings from different people at different times thrown together into one volume. Then translated and revised hundreds of times over. I wonder what the original version of Genesis before any translation, any revision or changes whatsoever looked like. Might have explained the concept of evolution for all we know but it was too hard a concept to understand when it was written so it was put in simpler language.

And through all of that, it is still in its original form and still carries the same message, the unfolding plan of God's salvation of mankind and still agrees on the method and the outcome.

gosimeon

Suff wrote:

GOD {Allah, Elōah,Elohim, The one GOD} is the Mighty Creator, if he wanted to create a human would he create a monkey/Ape and then leave it for millions of years to develop into a human?? then connect with it?
If GOD wanted to create anything he would just say:"Be!" and it shall be done.


Man Is Perfect, the human brain in the most amazing, Vast, baffling, Complex creation of GOD

Are you for real?

If you take every word of the Bible so literally, then how can you say that "Man is Perfect"?

Learn of the world around you - don't live in ignorance.

prov. 18:2 A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

who do I trust more, the scientific community as it relates to this topic (I have great trust in other disciplines of science) or Jesus, who witnessed the event? I go with Jesus.

A few points -

You aren't trusting Jesus. You are trusting a person who wrote a book about Jesus. Bit of a difference. Not really interested in another debate over why someone accepts that New Testament as a perfect record. But it is important to keep in mind that Jesus never wrote anything down. Anything about Jesus we have today is 3rd hand.

Secondly Jesus said "Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female', For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'

That passage makes the same sense if Adam and Eve were just a metephor, or a fable. For example, if I said "Have you not read that curiosity killed the cat..?" or said "Have you never read the story of the Turtle and the Hare..?" I wouldn't be saying that a cat actually died of curiosity, nor would I be saying that a turtle actually raced against a hare.

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

Adam and Eve had more than just the two children. The Bible just doesn't mention them because they aren't relevant to the story.

The problem with that is this passage

Gen 4:25 Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, "God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him

Seth was Adam's replacement son for Adel, who was killed by Cain. So Adam did not have another son until Seth and Seth was born when Adam was just over 130 years old.

So who is living in Nod? Who is Cain's wife, that he lay with after being sent away? Seth was born when Adam was 130 years. Yet Cain founded a city in Nod. Who lived in the city?

If one wants to stretch it one could claim that between year 1 and year 130 when Seth was born, Eve had a constant stream of daughters popping out. Without modern methods of feeding a woman will can have a child every 3 to 5 years. So Eve, in between the 3 sons, could have produced about 30 daughters. Are these the people living in Nod? A country populated by 30 women? Why did these daughters of Eve leave the original family, and why is that not mentioned in the Bible.

And if that is the case then Cain married his sister. And Cain's son Enoch married one of his aunts (or possibly another sister). Enoch's son Irad either married his own sister, or he married one of his aunts or his great-aunt.

Who did Seth marry? Seth married his sister of course.

By now people are probably going "ewww" :eek:

Now I actually don't think this is what the original writers of the Bible meant. They did not mean that the lineage of Adam and Eve was the biggest tail of mass inbreeding in history. It is clear from the descriptions of the land of Nod that they simply assumed other people were around and living there.

If one wanted to marry evolution with the Bible, even a literal reading, this would provide the easiest way of doing it. Adam and Eve might have existed, they might have been made by God, but they were not the only humans on Earth at the time. Where did the other humans come from? Evolution my dear Watson.

Actually reading through Genesis I can't actually find a passage that literally says Adam was the first human. Yes, if you follow it cronologically and assume nothing happens that isn't mentiond, then he is. But then if you do that Eve first has 3 sons, Cain, Adel and Seth yet Cain has a wife. So if you are going to assume a load of not mentioned daughters, why not assume a load of not mentioned humans?

BrianCalgary wrote:

And through all of that, it is still in its original form

You don't know it is still in its original form. Originally it had no physical form, it was a verbal story. It is highly likely that it was used as a political tool by kings and clerics, who could have easily latered the words, chapters or even stories.

We have hardly any surviving documents from the Old Testament before 300 BCE

gosimeon

Wicknight wrote:

The problem with that is this passage

Gen 4:25 Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, "God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him

Seth was Adam's replacement son for Adel, who was killed by Cain. So Adam did not have another son until Seth and Seth was born when Adam was just over 130 years old.

So who is living in Nod? Who is Cain's wife, that he lay with after being sent away? Seth was born when Adam was 130 years. Yet Cain founded a city in Nod. Who lived in the city?

If one wants to stretch it one could claim that between year 1 and year 130 when Seth was born, Eve had a constant stream of daughters popping out. Without modern methods of feeding a woman will can have a child every 3 to 5 years. So Eve, in between the 3 sons, could have produced about 30 daughters. Are these the people living in Nod? A country populated by 30 women? Why did these daughters of Eve leave the original family, and why is that not mentioned in the Bible.

And if that is the case then Cain married his sister. And Cain's son Enoch married one of his aunts (or possibly another sister). Enoch's son Irad either married his own sister, or he married one of his aunts or his great-aunt.

Who did Seth marry? Seth married his sister of course.

By now people are probably going "ewww" :eek:

Now I actually don't think this is what the original writers of the Bible meant. They did not mean that the lineage of Adam and Eve was the biggest tail of mass inbreeding in history. It is clear from the descriptions of the land of Nod that they simply assumed other people were around and living there.

If one wanted to marry evolution with the Bible, even a literal reading, this would provide the easiest way of doing it. Adam and Eve might have existed, they might have been made by God, but they were not the only humans on Earth at the time. Where did the other humans come from? Evolution my dear Watson.

Actually reading through Genesis I can't actually find a passage that literally says Adam was the first human. Yes, if you follow it cronologically and assume nothing happens that isn't mentiond, then he is. But then if you do that Eve first has 3 sons, Cain, Adel and Seth yet Cain has a wife. So if you are going to assume a load of not mentioned daughters, why not assume a load of not mentioned humans?



You don't know it is still in its original form. Originally it had no physical form, it was a verbal story. It is highly likely that it was used as a political tool by kings and clerics, who could have easily latered the words, chapters or even stories.

We have hardly any surviving documents from the Old Testament before 300 BCE

I'm starting to agree with you a lot!!

Scofflaw

BrianCalgary wrote:

Well Robin, scofflaw, wicknight, et al. I have spent time pondering this whole topic, mainly because of you guys, and here I go.

I accept the biblical account of creation because I can not reconcile evolution and the NT's references to Adam and Eve as historical figures. It then comes down to who do I trust more, the scientific community as it relates to this topic (I have great trust in other disciplines of science) or Jesus, who witnessed the event? I go with Jesus.

I think that's probably the most sensible reason. There is an apparently irreconcilable conflict between "Adam and Eve" and evolution.

However, to use your manutd.com analogy - has you ever considered that perhaps the Bible only mentions Adam and Eve because they were the first people of the (first) OT Covenant - the first people who God dealt with? Their "creation" in this sense becomes allegorical - equivalent to being "born again" (which hardly involves literally being born again).

That clears up the extra people in the Land of Nod, removes the conflict with evolution, and makes the OT the story of two covenants - the first broken, the second superceded by Christ.

Does God operate in this way? Well, we know for sure that the Bible was delivered only to a particular place. God did not reveal Himself to all mankind simultaneously - instead He delivered His Word to one people - Israel. Christ's message, in turn, was delivered within a very limited area, and left to men to spread. So, certainly God operated this way, to our certain knowledge - there is no bar to him having done so at the point of Genesis.

cordially,
Scofflaw

LaVidaLoca

that this is even considered a debatable subject in the 21st century.

Arguing about Adam and Eve vs. Evolution is on the same low-level of intellectual development as arguing about whether or not the earth is flat.

You can argue about the finer points of evolution if you like, even suggest a better theory, but Adam and Eve does not belong in the same conversation, any more than stories about the Stork belong in an adult discussion about sexual reproduction.

These stories come from the intellectual childhood of our civilization, and are only of historical interest now.

Terry

this may be hard to believe, but some people do actually have faith and belief in the bible and what it teaches.
post reported.

BrianCalgary

Wicknight wrote:

We have hardly any surviving documents from the Old Testament before 300 BCE

There are the earlist document is a fragment containing the book of John dated in the latter part of the AD50's. When the Dead Sea scrolls were tested to the earliest copies of the OT dated around AD1,000, they were to be found identical, save for spelling changes.

When put up against other ancient documents, Josephus, Homer and the like, the NT record contains over 25,000 manuscripts dated as early as 30 years after the events. The Iliad is next in line with @950 manuscripts dated 1500 years after it was written. Historians will tell you that what we have is as Homer wrote. Therefore what we have as concerned teh Bible is as was originally written.

BrianCalgary

Scofflaw wrote:

I think that's probably the most sensible reason. There is an apparently irreconcilable conflict between "Adam and Eve" and evolution.

However, to use your manutd.com analogy - has you ever considered that perhaps the Bible only mentions Adam and Eve because they were the first people of the (first) OT Covenant - the first people who God dealt with? Their "creation" in this sense becomes allegorical - equivalent to being "born again" (which hardly involves literally being born again).

That clears up the extra people in the Land of Nod, removes the conflict with evolution, and makes the OT the story of two covenants - the first broken, the second superceded by Christ.

Does God operate in this way? Well, we know for sure that the Bible was delivered only to a particular place. God did not reveal Himself to all mankind simultaneously - instead He delivered His Word to one people - Israel. Christ's message, in turn, was delivered within a very limited area, and left to men to spread. So, certainly God operated this way, to our certain knowledge - there is no bar to him having done so at the point of Genesis.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Well said.

Puck

LaVidaLoca wrote:

that this is even considered a debatable subject in the 21st century.

Arguing about Adam and Eve vs. Evolution is on the same low-level of intellectual development as arguing about whether or not the earth is flat.

You can argue about the finer points of evolution if you like, even suggest a better theory, but Adam and Eve does not belong in the same conversation, any more than stories about the Stork belong in an adult discussion about sexual reproduction.

These stories come from the intellectual childhood of our civilization, and are only of historical interest now.

Whether you like it or not some people on this board do hold to a literal translation of the creation story in Genesis. Simply calling it stupid will not be tollerated. Either participate in this thread in the manner the OP requested or do not participate in this thread.

Son Goku

The main reason to reject evolution is if you think that ideas are not held in regard based on their explanatory power.
Evolution has far more evidence, is so close to Popperian closure and capable of such a density of explanation, that any of these three criteria have to be almost totally irrelevant personally for you to reject it.

RealJohn

I believe in creationism but I don't feel the need to "reject" the theory of evolution. Evolution is a scientific fact (it can be easily observed in organisms that reproduce quickly) so I don't see why God, since He created the undeniable evolutionary process, couldn't have designed the Earth to suggest that this is how it all came about in the first place.

Why couldn't He have placed the evidence there for us to find and question? It's not as though He gave us all the answers. He gave us plenty of things to question and He gave us free will. He must have known we would eventually question His existence but what'd be the point if there was no evidence to back it up.

I've heard it argued that God left the evidence to test our faith. I don't believe this is the case but I don't see why He couldn't have done it just to give us something to do.