Could evolution and the Bible go hand in hand?

I was raised in a Christian environment. I guess I was in my late teens when I began to question all the things that I had been taught about God, the Bible, and life in general. Many of the doubts that I had, came primarily from science (which I really got into in high school) and new discoveries about evolution, dinosaurs, astronomy, etc. All these things seemed to contradict what I had been raised to believe. Since that time, I've become a devoted wife and mother. Yes, I was married in a church, and my daughter was baptized in a church. Not so much because of my beliefs at the time (frankly, I didn't know what to believe), but because of family tradition and expectation. I'm now in my mid-20s, have a wonderfull family, own my own home, have a good career, etc. But there has been something bothering me for a while now though. I think back to my childhood, early adolecence, and the amazing little world I lived in filled with Bible stories and songs about Jesus and Heaven (I've never been happier at any other point in my life.) I'm wondering if my daughter is missing out on something.I've started doing some research into those things that bothered me so much in high school. Those things that made me doubt God and his plan for me. I found this message board, which only put me further in doubt and created more questions than answers. But recently I've also found another perspective:Does God Exist? - Home PageHave a read and tell me what you think. Is it possible that evolution, the big bang, and dinosaurs all fit right in with the teachings of the Bible?

Ofcourse there is a possibility that evolution was God's tool. Even though I doubt it very much indeed. However it sounds like you havent heard much about creation. Sucuri WebSite Firewall - Access Denied look under 'evidence'. If your searching for answers there are 2 sides to every story.

I guess I don't get what you are trying to show me here. Are you trying to tell me that man existed side by side with the dinosaurs? There is no fossil record of that. I'm not looking for assumtions here. My brain needs hard facts. This just doesn't fit both sides. This information is molded, yes molded, to fit the "instant creation" side of the story.

I do not mean to be overly critical but on the first page of the website,under a Practical Man's Proof of God they state this:
The purpose of this brief study is to offer a logical, practical, pragmatic proof of the existence of God from a purely scientific perspective. To do this, we are assuming that we exist, that there is reality, and that the matter of which we are made is real.Let us be clear here.The only assumptions they have are, we exist, there is reality, and the matter we are made of is real.When we go to the article we soon find this statement:If we do exist, there are only two possible explanations as to how our existence came to be. Either we had a beginning or we did not have a beginning. The Bible says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1 :1). This is a new assumption that was not mentioned and is not inferred from the other three.The idea is to provide a practical proof of God from the first three assumptions.It would be a delight to have a proper arguement put forth here from which one can judge for oneself.Alas this is often the case on these sites.If you believe first then all is obvious.The error with this line of thinking is that if you already believe why would you need proof of the existence of God?[This message has been edited by sidelined, 10-16-2003]

If you want to investigate what other writers have to say on the topic a good place to start might be Kenneth Miller's _Finding Darwin's God_

Creationists have a hard time accepting science, in that they don't offer a single coherent theory to explain the evidence. They'll claim that people lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. You ask them about why they're never found in the same strata. They'll claim that strata are simply defined by what is in them (which is not true, and again doesn't address why you never find dinosaur bones in the same strata as humans). You mention radioisotope dating. They'll claim that it's wrong, and cite a bunch of different theories as to why that don't mesh with each other, or explain why all radioisotope dating methods would be wrong *by the same amount*. The one exception to that (that all radioisotopes decayed faster in the past) has absolutely no backing in either theory or testing; radioisotope decay rates haven't budged one iota since we first started testing them.In short, if they don't want to seem like a joke, they need to get some unified theory that explains everything together, instead of offering little proposals that contradict each other and the very book they're trying to defend as literal.If you want to read more, here is an excellent site:
TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution ControversyHere is its creationist response site:
http://www.trueorigins.org------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Sidelined,
I do value your insight. So let's assume that the author leaves God out of it for right now. Was there a beginning or has space, time, and matter always existed? What does science point to?

Thanks Rei,
I'm checking those out.

I would like to offer a website that will show you just how deeply science is capable of understanding the world around you as well as what constitutes a proper investigation into the nature of the world around us.It will also show the extent to which we are so very ignorant of the scope of this existence we find ourslves in.http://www.explorepdx.com/feynman.htmlEnjoy the brain exercises the website will put you through.

This is the problem I had growing up. The story of creation that I was taught, never made sense when you compared it to real hard evidence. That's why I can't quite swallow the "creationist" fodder.

Uh sidelined,
Did you just ignore my question and change the subject?

The way science approaches the issue of a beginning is to look at the universe as we see it .Consider we are surrounded by a universe which is expanding(and according to recent work also accelerating)The idea is to run the movie backwards,so to speak and imagine what would be the result.
We have evidence of a microwave background which we interpret (best guess) as the remnants of massive release of the thing we call energy.Now the thing we call energy is not what has been defined in some books as the capacity for doing work.This is a false statement since energy can be unavailable for doing work.Anyway this abstract entity manifests itself in different "forms".Going back in time we should see different manifestations of this energy in the way the universe unfolds such as simpler elements.There are points at which our mathematics take over to follow the way the universe must have been up to a very tiny fraction of time and a very small realm of space.It is from the observance of the world around us (especially deep space studies )that we are able to see that the mathematics holds true.There are huge amounts of work to be done to flesh out the skeleton of knowledge that we do have but to quote a fine mind "it is the most precious thing we have"Any way let us bat ideas back and forth and perhaps you can be shown a wonderous universe that you were not aware existed.Hey and don't ever lose those childhood memories.[This message has been edited by sidelined, 10-16-2003]

Nope It is just the nature of how these posts go together.I am not a fast typist and I do try to edit sometimes more than I should and hence do not appear to be following the sequence.

Science points to a beginning, however, coming to the conclusions that the universe was created (or there was some being/entity/happening that caused the beginning of the universe) is WAY different from coming to the conclusions that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth".At a logical level i can accept the first proposal, but I’d prefer to just leave that open as a question mark. However accepting that it is possible the universe had a beginning is in no way, shape or form accepting that there is a higher being, and is even FARTHER from the proposal that the christian God is that higher being... which is even FARTHER from the bible being inerrant.The web site you posted (and it's practical proof of god's existence) make some incorrect assumptions about what atheists believe. He attributes the "Humanist Manifesto" as a concise statement of atheist's beliefs. Atheism is not a religion, and there is no common denominator among all atheists. It's like the "other" category on a pie chart. perhaps there are some atheists who hold the Humanist Manifesto as a concise statement of their beliefs... but actually i'm not familiar with this manifesto (i define myself as an agnostic, but most people would hold my definition of agnostic is identical to their definition of atheist).I think it comes down to definition. If God is defined as The thing that caused the universe to come into being then it is very likely that God exists. If God is defines by what the bible says God is, it’s very unlikely that that God exists.------------------
vwls r vrrtdThere are 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

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But there has been something bothering me for a while now though. I think back to my childhood, early adolecence, and the amazing little world I lived in filled with Bible stories and songs about Jesus and Heaven (I've never been happier at any other point in my life.) I'm wondering if my daughter is missing out on something.

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I'd just like to point out that though you feel your daughter is missing out, you also have the opportunity to give your daughter something very special. An amazing world of great age full of mysteries and wonder. Dinosaurs, ice ages, geological wonders produced by the smallest of actions (say trickles of water) over millions of years. A world of atoms and molecules invisible to the naked eye. Genetics being responsible for the fact that there are air breathing animals adapted to living under water. I know I sound like a science fiction magazine from the thirties, but all of these things ARE amazing and wondrous and I am never less than awed by the scope of these things when I really sit down to think of them. What's more, your daughter has an opportunity to enjoy this world guilt-free as, to a lot of people, all of these ideas are extremely compatible with a belief in a God.All of this, of course, is contingent on the fact that you are comfortable with your daughter believing in these things. I would never dream of recommending something that was antithetical to your personal beliefs. I believe both sides of this debate have many wonders to offer and are worthy of study. I personally feel that the wonders offered by the scientific camp are even more wonderful because there is scientific proof to back them up and the scientific process demands speculation and questioning as opposed to the demand of obedience that religion calls for.