Faith: not wanting to know what is true. Friedrich Nietzsche

Look there is no reason why creationism and evolution can't co-exist, God creates the universe at the big bang and from then on everything evolves (with gods help).

If this happened(evolution)without any help like God,then the Christians will have nothing to fall back on,all the lost loved ones,they dont go to heaven or heck,they rot in the ground!....so thats why they are afraid...plus the people who belive not in god will rub it in there faces

I think many people are intimididated by the theory of evolution because it brings out the truth. That being that we were evolved from animals, and are ourselves animals. Even though we have a higher intellect than the primates we have descended from, we are still mammals. I remember being in 6th grade science class and mentioning that fact. We nurse our babies, we have hair, we are warm blooded. We just took over the world. When you think about evolution you are reminded that we are, in many ways, no better than the lowly earthworm, who only wants to eat and reproduce. Christianity just gets touchy about a lot of things...

The Intelligent Design of evolution is Truth -- God, if you will. God is "...that than which nothing greater could be conceived." Anselm. Read that "Truth is that than which nothing greater could be conceived."

The Truth of man existed from all time. The details of his evolution, genome, physiology, mental capacity, elements of his body, etc., came about in their own time. Man can conceive that given any place and any time with the genome, all the elements of his body, and a supporting environment, man functions as man. The route in evolution is twisted and cannot be untied in the specific strands, but the end result is known in considerable detail. That man functions as he does is due to Intelligent Design, who is God, who is Truth. For Christians, Truth will do. For Muslims, it is al Haq. For all others it is whatever is. Everything is what it is, and all events happen. Everything is true. What is not true does not exist and never happened. It is true that things that could be never were, or that things never were could be, but it is also true that what could never exist, never will.

The meaning of God (Truth) ends in a tautology. It cannot be negated. What can be negated cannot be God. Atheists are possible with respect to a false god, but there are no athruthists-in-fact.

God (Truth) created the true man long before a man ever existed. Evolution fulfilled the Intelligent Design of God by evolving a genome and bringing together the elements to form the first man. The rest is genealogy.

I think it is a mistake to make disagreement with the theory synonymous with 'taking offence by it' - taking offence implies a need to protect something, as opposed a rational analysis of the evidence or lack thereof.

If you read the Origin of Species you'll come across Darwin himself discussing the problems with the theory in an entire chapter of the same name.

He acknowledges for one, that the fossil record did not illustrate any occurence of an animal in a transition form that would illustrate macro evolution. He said that they would no doubt be found in the next 50 years, BUT, if they were not that we should ditch the theory! They have not found any fossils to clear these problems since the book was written, though they have found vast numbers of fossils. There are further difficulties with ribosomes - the natural 'language' used to decode dna - to decode dna requires a complete 'alphabet' if you like - but this alphabet was said to evolve side by side with the dna itself.

The most significant point to make is that Evolution is almost ALWAYS referred to as 'the theory of Evolutioon' - if it was proven, why do people call it a theory? Theories are possible, and ultimately science can never say its anything more than that... it can't even argue it is 'probable' - because to discuss probabilities requires a knowledge of the cause behind it.

I'm fine with holding it as a theory - I just believe in giving every line of argument a weighting that is not outwith its logical boundaries. The issue of Evolution is not one on which i base my faith, but as yet I do not see sufficient evidence to believe in Evolution.

You are obviously not intimidated by evolution. But still the question stands; why do people feel threatened by evolution?

Somehow I get the impression that it is largely from the Christian community that we see opposition to evolution, and that it is mainly in America where some religious groups want to make it a political issue.

Thinking about Enoia's response it occurred to me that all the fuss really can't be about evolution, it must be about hope, hope for a better world.

Isn't hope the core of the Christian faith? It can't be God, because a) God is not unique to the Christian faith, and God is above reason, and reasoning God is but a show of disbelieve. (=> Kierkengaard.) Realistically Christianity can also not be about Jesus, for he died on the cross for speaking his mind against the keepers (priests) of the Jewish tradition, in giving a more universal interpretation to the old scriptures.

I gather that it is the Christian hope for a better world that is in danger of being trivialised and overtaken by the global developments. Only some 33% of the world population is of the Christian faith, and they are divided into many fractions. Evolution is but a scapegoat; a way to express anxiety about the inhumanity and lack of freedom in so many societies, and the hope that it will get better before the world runs out of time.

Evolution should not threaten the faithful, for change is what life is all about. When we stop changing we die; we all know this. In fact, in the end, nothing should threaten the faithful and the non faithful alike but the loss of hope.

This is what I understand of the Christian world view: The hope of the Christians lies solely in Christ, with the promise that one day this humane, compassionate, and reasonable spirit that is associated with Jesus, will come back into this world, to lay bare in it's core (rightdown to the personal level) the evil (the mechanisme) that has ruled the world since forever, and root it out. Through this catharis (appocalips) a global society of free man and woman under a new reign of reason and compassion will be established for the next episode of human endeavour.

The Christians have sung their songs of hope and praise to keep the promise of the scriptures alive, awaiting those often envisioned days when the spirit of Christ will once again mingle amongst us and make the faithful see beyond their faith; that they are God's own. I take it that this points to a spiritual upliftment, also known as rapture in those cirkels. But I do think that the ramifications of a rapture are greatly exaggerated, when envisioned as people being lifted out of their pyjama's straight up into the sky.

When I first posted the question, I did not realize that hope is the angle that makes Christianity stand out from other religions. And that it is the loss of that hope that causes the turmoil. That is is not evolution that threatens the Christian hope for a better world, but a lack of faith in their own capability to make a difference.

I am not offended. I simply wonder what in the world we will evolve into next? If where we've come to be as humans is this place, then God please let us stop this evolving.

There is a very important reason why some people feel threatened by evolution, and that is in that it negates the concept of the soul as an extra-biological form.

If we assume two things: 1. Humans have a soul, and 2. Humans evolved from a lower form of animal

then we must continue this line of logical reason and make one of three value judgments: 1. Lower orders of animals have souls, because they spawned humans, which are soul-bearing entities, 2. Lower orders of animal have a "proto-soul," as in, some form of a soul that can evolve into what we consider to be a more morally sophisticated human soul, or 3. Lower orders of animals have no soul, but we do, in which case either humans have no soul, or evolution is not true; in either case, our initial assumptions are in contradiction and therefore they cannot co-exist, meaning, either humans have a soul or evolution is true and humans have no soul.

The problem this presents is that the person who is likely to believe that humans have a soul is a Christian, or at least a theist, which makes the moral question immensely more difficult. If lower forms of animals have souls just as humans do, then wouldn't they be subject to the same kinds of moral considerations mandated by the Bible or other religious texts, as in, thou shall not kill? Or as in, the moral mandate Jesus set upon us to feed and clothe our fellow beings?

And the problem with the second conclusion we reached is similar to the abortion debate: if lower orders of animals have "proto-souls," then are they not at least more morally considerable than rocks and trees? As in, if they are life forms that are imminently soul-bearing in the sense that humans are bearing of a sophisticated, morally considerable soul, then they are absolutely protected by the laws of morality in that they, in the long run, are just as morally considerable as us.

Thus, in recap, the problem evolution presents to theists is that it demands serious reconsiderations of the soul, and of the way in which other forms of life are treated: is it morally right to exterminate soul bearing/imminently soul bearing bacteria by the millions in the defense of individual humans? Is it morally right for us to allow finches in the Mariana Islands to starve to death? No, it isn't, if you try to unite the concepts of evolution and the soul.

So you must either choose, or radically re-work your worldview. Personally, I choose evolution, but that's a whole nother story.

I am a Christian and I love Astronomy. I am a Christian and have adored paleontology since I was around kindergarten age. My Bible and our Earths age can and do make scientific sense, hand in hand. Evolution is just theory and I myself am speaking in theory. I as a scientifically minded person, look for the facts and the facts of evolution have still not been established. I am not afraid of dinosaurs and billions of year old heavenly bodies and bones. I am not afraid of knowing that something as complex, as a human beings and the cells that make them, managed to find a way, through all of the universal chaos. All of that just shows how miraculous our existence actually is. All of it just seals the amazing wonder that life itself must be, to survive the odds......All I know of science has shown me the greatness of this universe, is most obviously, logically, Gods grand design.

"the religious love their holes, but when we start throwing dirt in them, they throw fits." okay okay, it isnt to the word but it is the point of it'

I think that Darwinian evolution isn't so much a theory, due to a lack of possibly for experiment and prediction to test the validity of a theory. But surely it is not uncalled for to say, on the basis of the careful and dedicated cataloging of species: 'He, it looks like there is an evolving process going on with life on Earth.' What's so scary about that?

Throughout history the various branches of the Christian Churches have sought to destroy anything and kill anyone who says anything contrary to their beliefs. ie the Crusades. Several of the Crusades were aimed at murdering Gnostic Christians because their beliefs taught that ignorance was one of the highest sins and an educated mind brought you closer to god. the world is ruled by blinding the masses. think about it. is there a difference between saying "do as your religion says or you'll be tortured after you die" or saying "do as your government says or we'll torture you now". is there a difference between those statements. they're both threats. god is usually seen as omnibenevolent but the idea of hell contradicts that. basically my point is that Christianity isn't a peaceful religion, it's a means to control people via ignorance. Just think about the grand culmination of the New Testament. The book of the Revelation. It promises global bloodshed and the death of everything as the opening act and the main event is the Return of Jesus. When you hear major religious leaders talk about this, they talk about it like its an orgasmic experience. They want this day to come more than anything in the world. They want to help it along. they see gruesome death of everyone as a good thing just so long as Jesus the magical carpenter comes back. They want him to return no matter what the cost. does that sound happy and peaceful to you. well it doesn't to me. it sounds crazy and that is exactly the problem. Their faith is based on fear. If they lack fear then their control falls apart. True wisdom can defeat fear and that is why they feel threatened.