God and Evolution: Mutually Exclusive?

SloanerF1

I think this is a very interesting question. I ask it because of my concern at the apparently strong frequency of atheism among geneticists and evolutionary biologists.

I personally believe that the two beliefs are not mutually exclusive. The story of Creation is a ridiculous over-simplication designed so that the early generations of humans could understand it. I personally think that God set the process of evolution in motion so that it would eventually lead to the creation of what we now call Homo sapiens.

azezil

I thought about this some years ago, i came to the conclusion that god made man, adam eve, when he cast them out of eden they reverted to a more primitive state and over time their decendants evolved

Of course that's pure tripe, as is the notion that 2 beings could provide enough genitic diveristy to allow a species to develope.

daveirl

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SloanerF1

Originally posted by daveirl
Its quite reasonable to believe that a higher being created the Universe and that evolution happend from there.

Sloaner you should check out the Humanities board

This topic might be better suited to there.

Sorry - I thought this had a strong scientific link .

daveirl

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Tails

I dont see why its not possible to believe in god and evolution.
God gave the possibility of evolution to overcome difficulties we face, ie. a rat becoming immune to poison, i know this isnt evolution but many small changes like this would lead to the rat being different to what it once was.

Im actually hoping to study genetics, so i wonder if ill stil be thinking the same way in a few years time.

Manach

Yes, with a rider.
Logically there is not one shred of evidence for God's existance, so the believer must come by a leap of Faith.
Science and so evolution are man's attempt to understand the physical world, with religion an attempt to understand the spiritual aspect.

Zombrex

The theory of evolution has never ever said anything about the existance of a god or higher being. It purely looks at the history of life on earth.

What it does do is conflict with the history of earth presented in the Bible. To my mind that is the Bible's problem, and not something evolution should concern itself with.

The question people have to ask themselves is if they only believe in God because of the Bible and it's stories. If that is true then I think it says more about the uncertainty of the human belief system than the existance of God.

I personally think that God set the process of evolution in motion so that it would eventually lead to the creation of what we now call Homo sapiens.

God gave the possibility of evolution to overcome difficulties we face, ie. a rat becoming immune to poison, i know this isnt evolution but many small changes like this would lead to the rat being different to what it once was.

Though I am an aethist and probably not qualified to comment on spirital belief, I think people who do believe in God should stop worrying about adapting science to the notions of what God is and how he does things. If you believe in God first, then what ever mysteries science reveals they are his plan and method.

Basically just go with the flow and stop worrying that God is going to be disproven, because that is as impossible as proving his existance.

happydude13

I think the probability of evolution having taken the course it has, thus far, has been compared to the probability of the world staying balanced on a suitably strong needle since the dawning of the universe.

Maybe its just luck or coincidence, but what are the chances

SloanerF1

Originally posted by happydude13
I think the probability of evolution having taken the course it has, thus far, has been compared to the probability of the world staying balanced on a suitably strong needle since the dawning of the universe.

Maybe its just luck or coincidence, but what are the chances

That's a very good point - I had never thought of it like that. It certainly fits in with my theory, explained above.

Zombrex

I think the probability of evolution having taken the course it has, thus far, has been compared to the probability of the world staying balanced on a suitably strong needle since the dawning of the universe.

I understand that the probability of life appearing on a planet is quite low (though I don't know where u get the earth needle stuff), but if you think about it there are millions of galaxies and billions and billions of stars in the universe. If the chance that life takes place is one in 10 billion that still means there is life on millions of planets.

Also if we didn't turn out as humans we would have turned out as something else. You only assume we were MEANT to turn out as humans, and then look at the odds of it happening and say that it must have been design. But if we had turned out as flying reptiles with 2 heads we would all go "what are the odds that we would turn out as perfect as we have, in Gods image"

DeVore

God in "I didnt do it!" shocker.

God didnt make man... he'd got nothing to do with evolution. The catholic church made that claim on his behalf.

Stop...
a. putting God where is wasnt
b. finding out that he hasnt
c. claiming that he isnt


Read the current thread on "God Science and The Clock" on the Humanities board.

DeV.

daveirl

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Tails

Originally posted by Wicknight

Though I am an aethist and probably not qualified to comment on spirital belief, I think people who do believe in God should stop worrying about adapting science to the notions of what God is and how he does things. If you believe in God first, then what ever mysteries science reveals they are his plan and method.

Basically just go with the flow and stop worrying that God is going to be disproven, because that is as impossible as proving his existance.

I dont think its a case of people of people being AFRAID of god being disproven but the idea that people saying he doesnt exsist from historic records ie fossils, etc.
(If you understand the difference then fair play!:p )

popinfresh

The only reason peole see evolution as an opposition to creation is because the Church cocked up and went totaly against the theory. Evolution in no way disproves that there is a god, but if people don't want to face the thought of a god then they just put their faith soley in evolution. And as I see it there is very clear proof of evolution even within the human race. Your skin gets darker the more you are exposed to the sun.. Therefore people exposed to a lot of sun (Africans) have black skin and people who get fcuk all sun have pale skin (ireland). In fact, the colour of peoples skin all over the world is proportional to the climate.

SloanerF1

Originally posted by popinfresh
Evolution in no way disproves that there is a god, but if people don't want to face the thought of a god then they just put their faith soley in evolution. And as I see it there is very clear proof of evolution even within the human race. Your skin gets darker the more you are exposed to the sun.. Therefore people exposed to a lot of sun (Africans) have black skin and people who get fcuk all sun have pale skin (ireland).

Although this grossly oversimplifies the theory of natural selection, I do agree with your point.

GuanYin

Read "The Blind Watchmaker" by Dawkins, it broaches this subject.

As an evolutionary biologist, I don't think that there is a higher level of atheists among biologists than any other profession ( for instance most of my colleagues are quite spiritual and I can't think of any of my programming friends that are religious in anyway).

However, the nature of professional scientists is that they tend to be more outspoken about things they regards as phallacies.

Its not that they are all atheists, its just that the ones that are make alot of noise about it.


Its a bit like saying all Irish people hate the English, we don't of course, but those that do make it known......

Saruman

Actually i have heard of Christians who believe the bible... also believe in Evolution.. why? they are scientists...

Anyway personally i dont know about God any more.. maybe there is and maybe not... I would say there is an intelligence int he universe.. maybe the Universe itself and we are nothing more than the tiny microscopic lifeforms that inhabit our own bodies.

Or maybe The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy is right!!! A group of Aliens call Golgafrinchams (spelling may be wrong) crash land on Earth a few millions years ago. They are all Insurance salesmen, hairdressers and other useless seeming memebers of society that were shipped off because they were unwanted on their world. They land and primitive man i.e Neanderthols are alive and banging rocks together. Unfortunatly they die out due to disease brought by the newbies... the Aliens are now what we call modern man and they are muppets and make an arse of things but become what we are today...

Obviously off the wall and no scientific basis but hey... its no "Impossible" where as everything God stands for is in fact Scientifically Impossible.. I dont believe in what Douglas Adams wrote in a piece of humerous fiction but its more interesting than Adam and eve!

Capt'n Midnight

Of course that's pure tripe, as is the notion that 2 beings could provide enough genitic diveristy to allow a species to develope.

one chromosome from each parent= 2^23
then there is crossing over as well
and mutations

Most humans outside of africa are genetically 6th cousins.
Most apes in the same forest have greater genetic diversity then non-african humans.

Look up bottleneck ? theory - human pouplation dorpped to a few hundreds at some stage judging by our range of genes

also mutation rate increases during food shortages

(the world was in fact created 5 minutes ago complete with fake fossile and people with false memories)

GuanYin

To be fair the few hundred is an extremist view (experts tend to be the extremists, the rest of us look on in a bemused moderate manner).

While the people publishing the papers would have you believe we all came from about 500 proto-humans, the reality is th enumber would be closer to a 5,000.

Its still an awfully small number and would better account for some of the genetic dispertion among humans.

In any case, it doesn't really matter, coz all we do is power the machines........

Ryo Hazuki

Though I am an aethist

Why should there a name for people who have no spiritual beliefs?

Just because lots of people believe in something that there is no evidence of.

Hopefully in a few years, it will be taken for granted that you have no religion and people who do will have to state it, like you did.

Kwizatz Anorak

I haven't read any of the replys on this so all you're going to get is an honest answer from me.
Yes it is possible. I don't subscribe to both of those myself, I just believe in evolution but back in the days when I thought I believed in God and knew about evolution, I believed both.
Religion gets its claws in the young. Schools teach evolution in this country. I'd be surprised if, in the predominantly catholic country that we live in where children have religion imposed on them from a very early age, a lot of people did not believe in both at some stage or another.

Short answer, yes but it's also possible to grow out of it....

Sarky

It's perfectly possible to believe in both science and God, but science and the Bible, now that's tricky. I think that's where the problems lie. People, if you'll pardon the pun, taking the bible as gospel.

That's not to say evolution is the answer. There are still plenty of holes that aren't fully explained ( I think the Cambrian explosion of species diversity is one case, where such a quick increase in diversity really isn't that plausible)

Scientists aren't athiests, they're just more willing to admit that their previous beliefs were wrong or flawed, and adopt more accurate beliefs.

Who's to say God isn't some sort of chaos theorist? He could have set up a complex system like the universe to run along a few guidelines. According the whole chaos theory, life was pretty much inevitable from the start in this universe, but the form it would take would have been anyone's guess.

I'm of the opinion that God (or whatever you want to call whatever started this whole thing off) effectively created the universe for shíts and giggles. An infinitely varied amusement park, if you will. Until something better comes along, I'll stick with that...

GuanYin

Originally posted by Sarky


That's not to say evolution is the answer. There are still plenty of holes that aren't fully explained ( I think the Cambrian explosion of species diversity is one case, where such a quick increase in diversity really isn't that plausible)

Scientists aren't athiests, they're just more willing to admit that their previous beliefs were wrong or flawed, and adopt more accurate beliefs.

I think that evolution is very very poorly understood by the general public, and you will get widely variable definition on it depending who you ask (all usually extremely wrong). Thats not to say evolution is a perfect answer. Evolutionary Theory is a discipline in itself and to say everything is known about it would be as insane as saying we know absolutely everything about physiology or quantum physics. All that said, if you ltry and literally fit the bible in with any area of science, you're going to run into problems.

That aside, as a scientist myself, I can't help but feel there is something more than we know here. The complexity and simultaneous simplicity of biological systems constantly astounds me and many times its impossible to believe it all happened by chance (then again other times I accept it readily).

It may be the Matrix, it may be ralieans, it may be God, but rational as I try to be, sometimes you get the feeling there is something there...

simu

It is possible for ppl to believe in evolution and god just as it is possible to believe in santa claus and the tooth fairy, or in conspiracy theories or in anything else that takes one's fancy!


For those who are interested, I do not believe in a god.
I do adhere to evolutionary theory.

This poll is badly-worded - there's a difference between it being possible to belive in something and it being correct or consistent to do so.

I'm picky, I know:) but it's important to be clear and unambiguous in this sort of situation.