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Depends on what you consider god to be, religion is not god nor does it make you "closer to god" If you believe god is the pure energy of life than the answer is no, if you believe god is what the bible says, then I guess you have some rethinking to do since human life is proven to be longer than the bible says so , lol.
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Well I just so love that monkey, it distracted me from the question for quite a while. I recently blogged four things about God: Number One: God, the Unknowable Essence of which all existence eminates. Number two: God, the word, the breath, that supports and exists within the tides of existence. Number three: God, the manifestation in a special human vehicle for the revelation that supports the progress of humanity. Number four: God, the higher nature of every human, whose best expression is in stretching the mind away from the primate instinct. So God is totally important for evolution both as an idea in humanity and as the reason for reality. .
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Evolution, science, religion and people can and should exist in complete harmony. The perception that they are seen as opposing at all is due largely to the conflicting interpretations of previous religions, not any inherent conflict. If you follow the time-line of any one of the world's great religions, you will find that as the religion reaches the zenith of it's development so does scientific progress, and as the religion declines and becomes progressively obscured by human interpretation, scientific progress also decreases. There is no creature that can itself create something from nothing, only the transformation of matter that already exists. As such evolution is not creation, only another process of change. For example if every individual element of a whole has a certain quality, then the whole can also be said to have that quality. So if a house is comprised entirely of red brick, the house itself is red. Likewise, if every created thing is powerless to create new matter, then the whole creation is itself powerless to create anything. All existing things then exist in a condition of complete dependency and helplessness. As such evolution represents our current understanding of the process of the transformation and development of forms, but it is not creation as in evolution nothing is actually being created. A creation however implies a creator, and as no creature within creation can truly create we are left with the existence of an external creator, that is to say God.
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I believe in both evolution and God and I think they go really well together. Anyone who has taken a close look at evolution knows that it is really a wonder to behold and for me all these beautiful and wonderful scientific facts and theories only serve to confirm my faith in a creator.
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nothing we experience in this earthly form rules out god simply because we are so limited in our vision of "reality". We only live on one plane. There are many. We see the underside of the rug and see the chaos but because we are limited by our bodies we don't see the glorious design on the other side. Most of what we do on this plane revolves around survival and ego protection. So no.
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neither evolution nor God have scientifically been proven.. so neither contradict the other
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No - people are going to create their own faith in what they choose to name the universal force. Besides, there is science backing up evolution... we have proof that life forms on earth have evolved and continue to evolve. Where is the proof that there is indeed existence of God? Plenty of beliefs and convicitions of faith, but where's the tangible proof?
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No, evolution does not rule out the existence of God and one can believe in God and still accept evolution as a scientific fact.
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Science has proven Religion wrong on many points. Religion will never be able to prove Science wrong on any point. First, it was whether or not Earth was the center of the Universe. Then it was discovered that something about the Universe, namely the speed of light, indicated that there was a beginning to the Universe some 13 billion years ago. However, the more we learn about the nature of the Universe, the more we know what we don't know about when and how the Universe began. To a Scientific mind, a Universe that comes out of nothing is inconceivable. To a Religious mind, a Universe that existed prior to some 4,000 years ago is inconceivable. I agree with Jezuzizkool, if God is all that we have made Him/Her up to be, then the physical Universe can be started up anyway He/She wants it to look like, either slowly with a definite order to the way things shape up, or all at once with a history that makes it look like it happened slowly with a definite order to the way things shaped up. But why all at once with a "fake" history? Some say it was to give the non-believers and those sitting on the fence something to tempt them away from God. To me, that's an ego trip. That's a game that only the ego could make up. If God is all that the believers make Him/Her up to be, God has no ego. And if God has no ego, the God of wrath in the Old Testament is a figment of the ego's imagination. How could that be? Simply by not recognizing that every action has a consequence. Step off a cliff and gravity takes over. The only person not bound by the physical laws of nature is one who has become at one with all of nature - and that's not even close to what I mean to say. Jesus, according to the tales told about him, was such a man - he walked on water. So in my mind, there is no cause for all this debate about whether or not God made the Universe in 6 days only some 4,000 years ago. If you want to believe that, do so. If you want to believe God made the Universe in 13 billion years, do so. If you want to believe that the Universe is infinite for finite, do so. But let's not make this up to be something to fight over, shed blood over, and condemn others for not believing the way we do. The only way anyone will ever know the Truth is after they die, but that is supposing that our consciousness lives on after death. We can believe the stories of people who claim to have experienced the Truth, but simply knowing what they know doesn't change the fact that we are what we are at this moment. And now for the kicker. If, some time in the distant future, Mankind discovers intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe (making all the stories about ET real), and if that intelligent life declares it knows the One True God, who will win that tug of war? The Muslims? The Christians? The Jews? Or the ET's? And will any of that prove anything about evolution?
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Very simply No. If you have a faith ion God then it should be obvious that God is capable of anything. If God wanted to make the world in 6 physical days then God could. If God wanted to use evolution to make the world God could. If god wanted to make the world over night God could. With that I still feel that God gave us brains to think with and reason with. The only time I think God is saddened is when we choose to believe that God had nothing to do with it. We discover almost daily new things about our universe and our own world. God cheers with us with each discovery. As we understand more and more about how to help each other as we discover how to live more in harmony with the rest of the created world God cheers for us. Like most everything is this world it is not a black and white thing it is much more multiple shades of gray.
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After studying molecular biology, I am certain that evolution requires the existence of an architect far greater than ourselves to design such an elegant design. Four basic bases make up DNA the order of these bases determines the structure of every protein contained in a living thing. Living thing uses protein to function. Not only muscles, but the enzymes and structure of other molecules are dependent upon these proteins. 4 bases, encode for 20 basic amino acids, the order of these determines the shapes and functions of proteins and enzymes in every living thing from virus to human being. considering the interdependence of every creature on so many others to survive, it is too remarkable to be random. Evolution is a requirement for diversity and ulimately man's survival. If we consider man to be God's ultimate creation, evolution is the only way that the foods we eat and the world we live in, to exist.
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I find it interesting, first of all, that some people say evolution has been proven. Did you know that for one creature to evolve into another, it would take over 50,000 physical changes? It would take over 50,000 generations to go from ape to man. Where is that proof? Where are the 50,000 skeletons between ape and man. And since evolution is completely random, how is it that every ape that evoloved, evolved into man? Just one of those 50,000 changes in an ape being slightly different from the changes in another ape would end in two completely different creatures. And then, the chances that two of the same creature who evolved to be exactly alike, in the same place on the earth at the SAME time, and being of opposite gender so they could reproduce would be an absolute miracle. (that part is simply for those of you who believe that evolution has been proven - you believe its been proven, but is that because somebody told you, or have you checked into it yourself? Darwin himself gave ways to nullify his theory, and it has been) But, the question is: does evolution rule out God's existence? NO! I've already discussed just one way that evolution would have to be an absolute miracle. For evolution to happen, God would have had to do it. It is a proven fact that the earth is too young for our evolution to have happened here - EVEN evolutionists say this to the point that some have proposed that we were brought here by alien life (true fact). So, since it would take a miracle for evolution to happen, the only way it could exist is through God. As for the thought that evolution rules out that the Bible is historically acurate - I don't know where that came from. Evolution (if it were true) would simply fill in the blanks of the creation account in Genesis. The historical account of all other cultures of the world (as well as archaelogical finds) confirm the Bible's historical accuracy. And the thought that God created the earth (through evolution, or not) and stepped away to watch from a distance is very sad and contrary to His nature. If God is love and even reckons Himself as a father, how could he stand to be away from His children? He calls Himself Immanuel, which means God with us. He wants to be with us. I know it sounds mystical to believe that the God of the universe would want to dwell with us in spirit, but looking at the statistics, I don't see how that idea is any crazier than the idea that we exist because of evolution. I've seen and experienced too much to believe otherwise. We believe things too easily. Just because somebody says something is true and claims there's proof, doesn't mean they're right. In the US, we have the right to look these things up for ourselves. I challenge you to do that. (and don't trust the general media - they only share what they want you to hear) Anyway, I'm not trying to be all controversial and I don't believe I've hit below the belt, but I'm not here to be politically correct either :). I think that's why this forum exists, right? So, there are my thoughts. P.S. Check into the millions of things that have to fall into place just right just for the blood clotting process to occur. No species would have survived without it.
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Here is kind of an interesting blog post re: evolution: http://bit.ly/mavdq" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/mavdq Note: my assumption is that God- the 'great engineer' sort of created the perpetual motion machine we all tried to imagine. Anyway- if I am right - God designed evolution and sort of watches it from some distance, it raises many interesting questions about the nature of God. The bird learns to fly not for flights sake, but for the sake of it's particular ecosystem and it's own survival. It doesn't imagine flight as it is developing the capability over a billion years- it doesn't see the end- but the end is something larger than it can conceive. It is this way with man. More so over time- not less. In fact we run in to trouble with our planet in trembling proportion to our forgetfulness of this principle. Come in conflict with the well-being of mankind or with his ecosystem (we are at the top so that is pretty much the whole world at this point) and you begin to mark yourself for obsolescence. Ask the dinosaur how that works out. The math is inscrutable in it's final figure but it's trajectory is incontrovertible.
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If you think about it with a clear mind, God AND evolution make much more sense than Just God alone. We (humans, animals, plants, etc..) are constantly evolving...what a Godly & miraculous process!
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Of course not. I consider biology (evolution included) to be the study of how God goes about giving us the gift of life. It makes me very sad that so many religious people refuse to see things that way, and instead have to willfully blind themselves to self-evident facts. It also makes me sad that so many atheists believe science has proven the absence of a living, loving God.
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nope. and i also think that the "big bang" could have possibly been done by God too.
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No, it doesn't rule out God. It rules out much of the accuracy of the Bible as a historical account and many qualities the Judeo-Christian God traditionally possessed... But not the idea of a god entirely. This is pretty obvious to me, I don't know why so many people get hung up on it. Maybe because they're worried their God (Christian fundamentalist one, for ex.) is ruled out. I'd reckon that's probably it.
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Not necessarily, Theistic evolution says that evolution is gods tool and that we are the meant result. I think it's just theists coping with a theory that rules god out of creation to some extent but that is my opinion.
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