1/5/2005: Tsunami survivor

[Brown Thrasher]

Originally Posted by magilla

Brown Thrasher,

I am afraid I have to point out that you are indeed creating a false dilemma, in that you would have people choose between Christianity and evolution, when the choice is totally unecessary. You also seem to be presenting a logical fallacy known as "No True Scotsman". If you aren't familiar with it, it runs something like this:

Angus: Laddie, what are ye doin'? No Scotsman puts cream in his porridge!
Ian: But Angus, there's Uncle William, and he's putting cream in HIS porridge!
Angus: Ladde, no TRUE Scotsman puts cream in his porridge!

Your statement that "Christians" believe in a 7-day creation smacks of this. In fact, the vast majority of the world's christians accept that Genesis is an allegory, rather than historical fact. (I won't even go into the fact that Genesis contains two contradictory creation stories.) Evolution is *not* an absolute truth- not the way you mean it. It is a real, natural process that has been studied, observed, documented, and recreated in controlled laboratory settings. The truth is that populations evolve- there cannot be argument there. The "theory" of evolution that causes all the problem is common descent- but bear in mind that all the problems are political problems, and there is no controversy in the scientific community when it comes to evolution (I feel safe saying that, since I am a biologist). As to "knowing the answer to the question"--well, scientists, generally don't deal in that kind of absolute. We collect and evaluate data, and parse out what constitutes valid evidence and what doesn't. I am sorry if this doesn't fit with your worldview, but all the evidence is on the side of evolution, and none on the part of science. In fact, large parts of Genesis (like the Noachian Deluge) have been conclusively disproven, by multiple fields.

But religion is not the province of science. Biology in general, and evolutionary biology in particular, poses some problems for some peoples' religious beliefs, but most people in the world seem to reconcile the two just fine. Most people don't believe in a trickster God- one who would plant false evidence of evolution all over the planet, in an attempt to fool us. I would suggest you look up Kenneth Miller on the web- he's a biology professor at Brown University who has written exhaustively on the topic. I think you'd find his thinking interesting.

I don't mean to be rude, but I am not causing a false dilemma for anyone. I am absolutely not trying to get people to believe in christianity over evolution. I don't think my opinions really will cause evolution to be taking out of our classrooms ever. Again, I have never said that I believe strongly in either concept.
I think it's already been agreed upon that some christians believe in evolution. My point was that there are many who struggle with their religious beliefs where evolution is concerned. The southern baptist are taught that the bible is true word for word. Again, this is not my opinion, However, it is one that has been preached for years throughout America. I was brought up to believe the baptist theology, but I then went to school and found it very difficult to believe what I had been taught. I do not belive we have a "trickster" God. I just hope there is one, for without a God, I am afraid we will continue to evolve into destruction. Who knows, we probably will anyway.