Why evolution and Christianity cannot logically mesh

Firsly let me say that I do not believe in TOEvolution as commonly understood. My own reading of scripture disallows that notion and no science is going to change the fact. This is not so much close mindedness as it is placing what I believe scripture to say above what I believe man can say. Having said that, many Christians (using the same definition of Christian as applies to myself - ie: born again) do believe in evolution.Secondly. The OP states that traditional Christianity, where there was a fall before which there was no death, disease suffering etc., cannot logically mesh with evolution for the reasons you give. There would be nothing to discuss if that notion is held as as you hold it. IOW: If any other view is taken as new age (and as such is refused entry into the discussion) then there is no discussion possible. IOW: the rigid defintions preclude comment opposing your conclusion.Thirdly. A Christian is a person who has at some point seen that they themselves are utterly corrupt in their sin before a holy God. They are people who at some point accepted their need of a savior and in so believing God in this matter (for it is God who brings to a person conviction about that matter) have Christs righteousness credited to their account. Just as Abraham believed God at it was credited to his account. God then brings them to (spiritual) life. They are born again whether they would describe things that way or not. What a person believes about origins of life or the flood or creation in 6 days is irrelevant to that series of events. A person can believe the moon is made of cheese if they want. Certainly Christians can and do disappear up their theological backsides - not only with evolution (in my view) but on a whole raft of theological issues. The current new-kid-on-the-block is Open Theology which is being furiously debated at this time. None of this matters in an ultimate sense however - so long as a person is a Christian. And Christians debating such opposing views as Calvinism and Open View recognise this and whilst they vehemently oppose the view the other holds they recognise that the other person is a Christian as are they.******A couple of point w.r.t your OP. Traditional Christianity has God slaying people left right and centre. Whole armies, complete towns and cities, woman and children are wiped out. God will punish people by their millions in ways that defy description - for all eternity. And traditional Christianity holds NOT that God is cruel in so doing. Such a God is compatible with Evolution on that score at least.Traditional Christianity says that man is born a sinner (a result of the fall: whether of creationist/evolutionist origin) so when people talk about 'innocent little children' Traditional Christianity responds: "they are like us all - guilty little sinners". The question that should be asked is not "why did God allow young innocent children to perish?" but "why does God bother saving any sinners at all?"And if evolution was the way it happened then there was no such thing as cruelty before man came along to consider it so. Certainly no animals were complaining before that time. What worth has an animal except the worth that God ascribes it. What worth a man for the same reason. All an animal is is a collection of chemical compounds organised in this or that way and there is nothing more cruel about one ripping the other apart than there is in chopping down a tree. No, cruelty is a concept that only occurs in man - and God placed that concept into man (whether by evolution or special creation). And man uses it to point at God.... go figure.What seems to be forgotten about here is Gods purpose. If God has purpose in mind for doing as he does, if he is working all things towards some end goal then his actions can no more be considered cruel than can a vet cutting the diseased leg from an animal be considered cruel. The ends justifies the means only so long as God says they do. Man has no objective say in the matter. Mans problem is that he wants to understand it all - he wants (and has wanted from the moment he began listening to the temptation of satan) to be like God. He won't, in his fallen state, simply allow God to be God and trust that God knows what he is doing. If he cannot logically understand it all then he finds fault in God. And a God with fault is not worthy of worship. Its just one of the multitude of tricks a fallen man uses to retain throneship over his life.It is not so much that mans morals are subjective it is that they are skewed, corrupted, not reading things right. They can be relied upon as one would Faiths dodgy computer - not at all. Traditional Christianity says that man is rightly condemned because of his rejection of Gods attempts to straighten his thinking out. IOW. A man stands condemned from the day he was born. And it is mans wilful rejection of the gospel that keeps him on the road to destruction. Not his fallen skewed morals doing only what fallen morals can do. They are irrelevant to salvation.

That might be reason enough to do it - people deserved it. But he slayed animals too. And they have done nothing to deserve it: pre or post fall Hand on heart? I never heard of the Fall before I became convinced I was in need of God. I didn't consider myself going to Hell for my sin either. I learnt about all this stuff subsequent to my salvation.Each persons conviction is personal to them. Post-that they can see (because their eyes are opened) how it all ties back into the central doctrine. But you do not need one iota of doctrine to be convinced in the way that befits yourself. Sure, if that was the case then only people who knew of the doctrine could be saved. God wants that NONE should perish - not just the ones brought up in Christian countries. That would be cruel! We're looking at whether it is possible (logically with reference to the logic of traditional Christianity) for evolution yet a fall. That is logically possible I hold and many Christians (who are Christians according to the same definition that applies to me - like I said) hold that TOEvolution happened. It proves no barrier to them (and such discussion might perhaps be the disolution of the last barrier you hold up. It is one of your favorites afterall - be careful where you thread ) The way to approach it then is that the fall is a given and then see how well an evolutionary situation would fit within that context. You have to start somewhere in looking at this.And IF a fall THEN our thinking being skewed is a given. Cruelty exists - but our view is skewed. Justice exists - but our thinking is skewed etc.Now pain is just sensations from nerve endings. 'Nicely' warm to 'painfully' hot is just a continuum of nerve reaction to stimuli (the terms 'nicely' and 'painfully' are human ones - that much we are certain of). And certain stimuli cause certain reactions in a mechanical way. According to traditional Christianity (or at least it does not clash with traditional Christianity) an animal is just a mechanical (in a biological sense) creature and to talk of cruelty to mechanical things is to engage in skewed thinking. It's only when the life of God comes to a machine - making him a man that the notion of cruelty comes about.The real issue of cruelty is as it refers to what is going on in a man who is being cruel. The animal is a machine as it ever was (programmed by God in his benevolence to communicate and respond to us for our pleasure and reward). A man who is being cruel to an animal is the object of the notion of cruelty. You cannot mix your units of measurement without demonstrating a valid way of doing so. IOW: cruelty we know is a human construct. It can only be applied to humans as far as we can be sure.So, it is the evil in a cruel man (his supposing the animal to suffer in the way you imagine it does) which is the ugly thing. He is causing wanton damage to something that God has given him dominion over but it is still Gods property and is not being treated in a way that God intended. We can look at the parable of the talents to see that our role is to shepherd and guard Gods property.That is the extent of the problem of cruelty. That a person says "poor creature" is a reflection of a sense that the cruel mans actions are wrong and that the animal needs to be rescued from his cruelty - for what he engages in is a distortion of the proper order of things. In so far as it goes we are engaging with the problem correctly. Then we add skewedness: the sense of the animal suffering for its own sake is a projection of 'being' onto the animal. A projection that is without biblical warrant. We all know people who abuse the place of animals as intended by projecting human traits onto them. Unto completely ridiculous behaviour such as leaving their fortunes to them in their wills. That skewedness we can see. Step back a little and the same applies when we suppose an animal to suffer as we would under similar circumstances.This has nothing at all to do will development of the nervous system (making it acceptable to throw a lobster but not a dog into boiling water). You are dealing with a machine in all cases. Lets not suppose otherwise without just cause. okayEdited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

The psychological life of iano will rot in the grave along with the rest of his 'flesh' The psyche is not iano - its just a bit of the machinery iano travels around in. I would be doing a disservice to Christianity were I ever to place it above its station.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Of course it can be defended rationally. God is patently of a different order than us. Therefore aspects of his workings will not be open to our reason. We can attempt reasonable inference given other data. No harm in that.

Your presuming about conscience not bothering him. A man can murder and have that on his conscience. Conscience tells us what we ought to do and not do. When we do right it confirms we have. When we do wrong it confirms we have done wrong. And it will function so until it is silenced out by a mans will. Then a man can do truly depraved things without being bothered by conscience. His is a sorry end. He cut of his lifeline.Strictly speaking, mans has not 'skewed' morality according to traditional Christianity (of the type you seem to assume - a nod to Archer thus). Man is totally depraved and his thinking totally dark. It is the wrestle between this and Gods call (through conscience/nature/his word etc) which results in actions that vary wildly. With two persons wrestling with the steering wheel (God and a man) you get wildly varying results. And so it will remain until either God or man lets go of the steering wheel. At that point the car will steadyily head in the direction of the person holding it. Its a sorry day for a man and God the day God lets go. And a joyous one for God and man the day the man lets go.The way sin works is that man is doomed from the outset. Without any action by God he would be thrown on the rubbish heap as useless. He could just be wiped out and annihilated at that state. There is no justness in punishing him - for he acted, like an animal would, totally according to his fallen nature - he could not act otherwise.The problem for him seems to arrive out of the fact that God does not leave man alone. A man has had the benefit of Gods call operating on him and in doing wrong acted willingly to do wrong. In silencing Gods call, if this is what he does, he was the one who put that call to death. He chose to do so. That is why he can be punished for his sin. His sin is his own choice.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

The rational defence of "we do not know" is that there is ample evidence elsewhere to suggest reason all over the shop. Reasons that make rational sense abound.So to suppose, whenever we come up against an unknown, that there is no reason for it - flies in the face of the evidence we have got.Evolution itself works on such tentives.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

The thread is "Evolution and (what I understand to be Robins version of traditional) Christianity (to be) cannot logically mesh".I argue that they can. In so doing I assume God and assume Evolution. In assuming God I can point to reason all over the place. We see so as not to bump into things. We communicate so as to share the gospel (for instance). And traditional christianity gives a reason for suffering post-fall. If we come across something for which we cannot (at first flush) see the reason for then it is safe to say (given the multitude of reason already apparent - given our assumption) that there is a reason for it and the problem lies in us not apprehending what that reason it. That is the natural conclusion we should draw given the weight of existing evidence tending towards reason.I'm wondering what Robin actually finds illogical myself to be honest.

The reasoning for post-fall suffering is as clear as day and is not a problem at all. Gods wrath poured out on sin is what is going on. Now a person could say that that seems somewhat extreme a reaction but they would wouldn't they - they are fallen. Or to put it in a less smartass fashion - without knowing the extremity of the significance of sin one is not in a position to say the reaction is extreme. So we are left with:If God says sin is that bad then it is. If this is unacceptable is it only because you say so. We have Gods view vs your view. Thus we either believe you or we believe God. Then we must ask why should we believe you over God.Pre-fall suffering is something I addressed here:http://EvC Forum: Why evolution and Christianity cannot logically mesh -->EvC Forum: Why evolution and Christianity cannot logically meshThat is, suffering is only suffering once God makes man. With no man to consider it as such there is no suffering - just different reactions to stimuli by complicated biological machinery (for TOE on its own holds that all we are is complicated biological machinery. Adding God changes one animal into man). And that idea stretches in to the post-fall era in so far as it concerns animals. Animals don't actually suffer - they remain, unlike us, as complicated biological machines. Machines don't suffer, only man does (for the reason given above)Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

We are assuming for the sake of discussion Evolution and God and trying to see the illogic.Suffering is something only known to man. Man has a consciousness that animals do not have, self awareness etc. It is illogical to place on animals a sense of suffering (ie: they suffer as we do) if they do not have our consiousness (remember we are accepting God here - thus man is a different order than animals.Yes the animal experiences pain (but let us not suppose that is as human pain - which is suffering). And they react to that. We may even assume a psychological disturbance similar to that which we go under (but we cannot call that suffering either). We would have to be able to remove that which makes us men and experience all this in order to see if that was still suffering. This we patently cannot do.In short, animal suffering is not a grounds for declaring 'can't logically mesh' simply because there is no way to ascertain that what we suppose (they suffer) is the case.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Your believing or not doesn't alter the fact that God made you human. Nor does it mean he is not your God as much as mine.The purpose of this discussion is as the thread title. The method for discussion I have assumed with Robin since earlier involves assuming TOEvolution and God (as Robin understands it) are both true.
Then its a case of looking for the illogic.Given those two things, that man is of a different order than animals is also given. So when he suffers he does so in a way that cannot be allied to animals no matter how close physiological aspects can be compared. For man is an animal too but differs in one vital respect.The similarity between man-the-animal and chimp-the animal 'suffering' is to be expected but since we cannot divorce man-the-God-made-being-in-a-similar-to-animal body from the animals we cannot comment on them suffering. To suffer is as far as it is possible to tell purely a human experience. We cannot say more than this for we cannot become solely animals in order to find out.All the physiological similarity in the world scratches not one jot on that. By physiological read "any similarity between man an animal that arises out of their animalness" We cannot exclude the God-made bit in order to identify suffering apart from its presence in usEdited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Given the assumptions at the outset TOEvolution + God are true there is a key difference between man and animals. So when man experiences suffering he does so from the perspective of being radically different than the animals. And whilst one might weight suffering on the basis of physiological reactions and therefore draw parallels, one does so in the dark.How does one decide that a biological machine (which is what TOE on its own says animals are) suffers? How do machines suffer? Adding God to the equation simply adds another dimension to one particular machine. These are known to suffer by themselves with themselves as evidence for it. Any extrapolation onto suffering in animals needs to overcome the problem of how one divides suffering from the self. For without such division suffering is intrinsically wrapped up in the self being around to experience it. Traditional Christianity was a term introduced to specify to a person (Robin) that what I was talking about wasn't (what Robin refers to as) New Age but included classic items such as the fall, Christs atoning sacrifice, salvation by faith alone etc.Time to shit or get off the pot Archer Edited by iano, : No reason given.

SIS!! I wanted Robin to say why he thought it was illogical not for you to prompt him with answers. Now I don't believe in Evolution for a minute but its fun to argue it.For your sins..You know that "surely die" means a spiritual death (according to traditional christianity). And that spiritual death also means the physcial death of Adam and the rest of us fallen creatures. What is incorrect with the view that in blowing Gods own life into Adam God also blew his immortality into a creature who up to that point was mortal. The gift of spiritual immortality given a particular creature who happened to be walking by ( Adam) is huge - that he be given physical immortality at that point was a necessity Edited by iano, : No reason given.

I think I see where you are going awry w.r.t. sin Robin. According to the model you are running you are logically correct. If fallen and our morality skewed (subjective) then how can we be held legally guilty by the objective morality. There would be 2nd rate barristers at the day of Judgment plea bargaining on the basis of that loophole: if my morality was rendered subjective through no fault of mine then how can I be condemned for applying it?Is that about it?

If we had no conscience it would mean that God wasn't active. In that case we would act according to our nature - just like animals do. There could be no punishment for that. We could be just thrown in the scrap as a failed project. DestroyedBut God does act. We have our conscience telling us truth so when we disobey it we are actively and willfully sinning. We have our sinful nature pushing us in that direction but we didn't have to go there. This can be rightfully punished. And will beThat is the model. The other aspect is that God uses the fact that we disobey conscience to draw us. He knows that we will hear him through conscience and that we will very often deny it. In his foresight he institued the law. Beccause he knew by doing so we would break that law. Now conscience has a tool - our law breaking. It uses the fact we break the law to press down on us. It attempts to remind us of that fact. We feel guilt and shame. And in denying conscience we wriggle around denying that we have done so. In the measure we succeed in suppressing this truth we pull away from God. In the measure we don't suppress we are drawn nearer. All without God having to reveal himself to us. Smart huh?.That is a way to see it. Not some middle ground subjective. Rather a fight between extreme opposites. Sinful depravity (our nature) vs Pure goodness (conscience - or rather, his Holy Spirit working on us to convince us of our sin)The fact that there are so many moral views simply represents the state of the battle between the two. Folk are at different points on the continuum. At one end of that continuum you have salvation. At the other you have death/God ceases calling whilst still aliveEdited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

The end of Romans 7 describes what goes through the mind of a man who has reached the salvation end of the continuum. He is not saved yet but has been drawn to the edge of the cliff and is about to be drawn over the edge into salvation. The section illustrates a mans conscience screaming at him. He is under total conviction of his sin at this point When we feel guilt and shame for wrongdoing what is actually happening is that we are acknowledging that Gods law (even though we might not realise it as Gods law - if we are further down the continuum, further away from the cliff of salvation) is good. Thats what shame is. A conviction that we have sinned against God.Now a person might not be in the turmoil of this man where they are so tossed as he is. Furhter down the continuum there might only be shame - not the questioning of it. There might well be repression* of it instead*Or rather 'suppression' Paul uses that word. "Suppression of truth". Our consciences tell us truth about ourselves and we suppress that truthEdited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.