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"Origin of the Species" is Theistic

tas8831

Well-Known Member
I've never felt that Darwin believed anything that was hostile to Creationism. The Creator breathed the life into a biological organism that is self replicating and self evolving. The only sin is that ignorant and arrogant men try to make it all a random accident.

The real sin is when people that dislike evolution on non-scientific grounds misrepresent it - either on purpose or out of ignorance - to make themselves feel better about their poor choice.
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Contrary to what some people believe, creation is not off the table.
You might find this interesting too.

Even the National Academy of Sciences had indicated the possibility of creation, by citing THEISTIC EVOLUTION (the belief that God created the universe and the process of evolution), as not in disagreement with science.


"Many religious persons, including many scientists, hold that God created the universe and the various processes driving physical and biological evolution and that these processes then resulted in the creation of galaxies, our solar system, and life on Earth.
This belief, which sometimes is termed 'theistic evolution,' is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution. Indeed, it reflects the remarkable and inspiring character of the physical universe revealed by cosmology, paleontology, molecular biology, and many other scientific disciplines."


Quotes from: 1999 report "Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition" which is available online from the National Academy Press: http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=6024



being what science is (which deals only with the natural), that's as far as science can understandably make claims about the supernatural. :)
Contrary to what some people believe, creation of reality not off the table."


Reality as Virtual reality in religious drag or not is not biblical not Christian it's just deluded garbage.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I've never felt that Darwin believed anything that was hostile to Creationism. The Creator breathed the life into a biological organism that is self replicating and self evolving. The only sin is that ignorant and arrogant men try to make it all a random accident.

It could be a random accident and I say that as a creationist believer. Further if there is a Creator, it doesn't mean that the Creator is what you believe in. Imagine a trickster God, all powerful and the source of everything. Then this God could have created a natural universe and humans without souls and no Heaven, Hell or reincarnation.
From a belief in a Creator follows nothing more there is an event of creation.
We both are religious but that is probably all. I would never view other humans as ignorant and arrogant with it comes to these matters and limit it to men alone. With some versions of a God even some atheists can go to heaven and some religious people would still go to Hell.
Faith alone doesn't cut it, because then all versions of God would be true and in effect God would be e.g. a Christian God and not.
 

tosca1

Member
Contrary to what some people believe, creation of reality not off the table."


Reality as Virtual reality in religious drag or not is not biblical not Christian it's just deluded garbage.

No, it's not Biblical. I don't believe in theistic evolution - just to get that on record.
But I'm responding to the line of thought that's conveyed in the OP.

Anyway, the Bible is not meant to be a science book.....HOWEVER, modern science happens to confirm some Biblical passages. As an example, who would've thought the "stretching heavens" isn't just a figure of speech - that, it can be taken literally!

Science was created for a reason, and I believe it was created for the glorification of God.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Just so nobody gets distracted it's pretty concrete Darwin's view on the subject of God........

A Letter About Darwin’s Belief in God Just Sold for Nearly $200,000 | Smart News | Smithsonian

The letter is 40 words long and it says this....

"Private
Nov. 24 1880
Dear Sir,
I am sorry to have to
inform you that I do
not believe in the Bible
as a divine revelation
& therefore not in Jesus
Christ as the son of God.
Yours faithfully
Ch. Darwin"
On the contrary, that letter us little about Darwin's views on God.

All it says is that he does not buy the idea of Jesus as the Son of God, or believe the bible is divine revelation. So it tells us he did not believe certain specifically Christian doctrines about God and Jesus, that is all.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
I've never felt that Darwin believed anything that was hostile to Creationism. The Creator breathed the life into a biological organism that is self replicating and self evolving. The only sin is that ignorant and arrogant men try to make it all a random accident.
I do hate this "random" nonsense. It is the theory of evolution by natural selection. So it is the polar opposite of "random".
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
the Bible is not meant to be a science book

I think it was. The Bible attempts to explain how the world works, how it got to be that way, and what will come - all issues that science tackles. The fact that the Bible got so little right doesn't mean that its writers didn't try and fail.

Your comment is one of the many adaptations Christianity has had to make as science marches on and disproves its mythology. These days, many Christians are saying that biological evolution occurred and is still occurring here on earth, and that there is no such thing as hell or damnation.

Science was created for a reason, and I believe it was created for the glorification of God.

Science was developed to discover the ways that physical reality works. Gods aren't needed in science, and in fact have no place in it. No scientific theory contains a god, needs a god, or could benefit in terms of explanatory or predictive power by the ad hoc insertion of a god into any scientific theory.

Edit: typo corrected.
 
Last edited:

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
The point being that anti-theists seem to think that evolution is a science that is apart from God, when in fact it is perfectly possible, even likely, that a person believe in both evolution AND God.

Creationists are even worse about this, decrying evolution as atheistic. Nothing could be further from the truth.
 

QuestioningMind

Well-Known Member
On the second to the last page of "Origin of the Species," Charles Darwin writes,

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

You do realize that most modern day theists see no conflict between the theory of evolution and the concept of a creator God, right?
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
Just so nobody gets distracted it's pretty concrete Darwin's view on the subject of God........

A Letter About Darwin’s Belief in God Just Sold for Nearly $200,000 | Smart News | Smithsonian

The letter is 40 words long and it says this....

"Private
Nov. 24 1880
Dear Sir,
I am sorry to have to
inform you that I do
not believe in the Bible
as a divine revelation
& therefore not in Jesus
Christ as the son of God.
Yours faithfully
Ch. Darwin"

Keep in mind that all religions that I know of have lots of blood on their hands, especially Christianity, not because of God but because of men. The unknowing and bitter try to blame God for that. I have my own issues with accepted beliefs, ones that many have died over. Notice that he disavowed man's beliefs but not God. People were still being burned at the stake in the 14th and 15th centuries, and in Salem, Massachusetts, it happened in the late 17th Century. All this has nothing to do with God, but with evil men.
 

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
The point being that anti-theists seem to think that evolution is a science that is apart from God, when in fact it is perfectly possible, even likely, that a person believe in both evolution AND God.

Creationists are even worse about this, decrying evolution as atheistic. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I agree with you, but may not agree with you or others that it follows naturally that the higher powers were understood in preceding times. On the contrary, the ideas of Darwin can more easily be understood as the tip of the iceberg. What our best thinkers, innovators, and scientists are now revealing is a little further down that very large iceberg, and hypothetically a true understanding of higher powers is at the very base. So I put it to you, why should one not view ancient religions as being proportional to ancient technology or thought in terms of efficacy? In scientific terms, religion might not even be revealed yet.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Ancient people, who were herders or farmers, knew first hand about the breeding of animals and plants, which is the foundation of the theory of evolution.

Anyone who was successful as a farmer or herder would see the trends that we now call evolution. The thesis of Darwin was not new. It existed, in essence, from the start of civilization. Darwin was a city boy who may have forgotten what the average rural farmer knew. Darwin thought that hearing the old song, for the first time, made it new to him. Science, in general, was also off the farm, and when they heard the old song, it was like a new song to them.

Evolution does not deal with the creation of life on earth from scratch. Darwin dealt exclusively with reproduction from existing life, and the changes that occur between generations. The formation of life from scratch is the subject of a different branch of science, called Abiogenesis. This name is a derivative of Genesis. Neither are the same as evolution, since neither start with viable life that already reproduces.

Both theories; Genesis and Abiogenesis form life from scratch. They are similar in that neither path has been demonstrated in the lab. Then differ in that Science use a god of random. This random god assumption, allows them to assume anything, but not on demand. While religion uses a god of willpower, order and reason. But in both cases, neither have successfully reproduced the original experiment of life, starting with their nothing and their respective god.

I agreed with everything you said about Evolution is not about the origin of life “from scratch”.

But I disagree with saying about Abiogenesis “Then they differ in that Science use a god of random”.

Abiogenesis isn’t a religion, and has no “god” that personified as “random”.

Has Abiogenesis replicated life in the lab?

I would agree with you, and say “no”, but some experiments (eg Miller-Urey experiment, 1952) have successfully replicated organic matters (amino acids) from inorganic matters (methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen gas (H2) and water (H2O)), and by applying heat and electricity (to simulate lightnings) to cause a catalytic reaction.

Other experiments have used other different chemical compounds. Trying to simulate conditions where it is possible for amino acids to occur naturally.

For example, one experiment trying to simulate the environment of a young Earth, where there was no oxygen in the atmosphere at that time, but more carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), sulfur dioxide (SH2) and nitrogen gas (N2), which would be more common with global environment affected by frequent volcanic activities. This experiment also produced successful results, in producing amino acids.

There are over a hundred different types of amino acids, of which 22 of these are essential compounds that are natural occurring and needed as building blocks for different types of proteins.

Proteins are one of essential biological compounds needed for life. Without amino acids, there can be no proteins.

Different amino acids produce different structures and different functions of proteins.

Nucleic acids, like RNA & DNA, are essential as well, in life, but so are proteins, since for instance, in a human body, since 20 to 22 percent of our masses are made out of proteins, RNA only make up 1%, and DNA is even less than that 0.1% of our mass.

Organic matters, such as proteins, DNA and RNA may not be “alive”, but they are essential parts of all life, including humans.

Without amino acids, there are no proteins. Without proteins, there would be no tissues (eg muscles, nerves), no various organs, no catalyzing metabolic reactions, etc. The blood plasma in our bodies also contained proteins.

Even DNA required proteins to replicate DNA.

This is one of the reasons why amino acids are so important in Abiogenesis experiments. Amino acids are just important as DNA.

  • Is amino acid a living organism? No. It is essential compounds in proteins.
  • Is amino acid essential for life? Most definitely, yes.
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
As a "naturalist" particularly, but as just a regular
Joe it would be tough not to know of selective
breeding. You are making it up that Dsrwin was
ignorant of these.

And making up your "science in general".

Genesis (god-poof) and abio are not
theories. There is no such thing as
"god of random".
Y
No, it's not Biblical. I don't believe in theistic evolution - just to get that on record.
But I'm responding to the line of thought that's conveyed in the OP.

Anyway, the Bible is not meant to be a science book.....HOWEVER, modern science happens to confirm some Biblical passages. As an example, who would've thought the "stretching heavens" isn't just a figure of speech - that, it can be taken literally!

Science was created for a reason, and I believe it was created for the glorification of God.
Created in the text isn't a literal nor a metaphor. And certainly morphology of language makes understanding what was meant rather difficult. One would think artists would be better at explaining that but alas not generally. But the mystery of life is a something to be experienced not explained, so how would one go about "explaining" that exactly with any clarity is rather difficult since the explanation is never the experience.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
I think it was. Them Bible attempts to explain how the world works, how it got to be that way, and what will come - all issues that science tackles. The fact that the Bible got so little right doesn't mean that its writers didn't try and fail.

Your comment is one of the many adaptations Christianity has had to make as science marches on and disproves its mythology. These days, many Christians are saying that biological evolution occurred and is still occurring here on earth, and that there is no such thing as hell or damnation.



Science was developed to discover the ways that physical reality works. Gods aren't needed in science, and in fact have no place in it. No scientific theory contains a god, needs a god, or could benefit in terms of explanatory or predictive power by the ad hoc insertion of a god into any scientific theory.
No it doesn't. The bible is about the relationship between God and Man. There are two Genesis stories which are contradictory, so how this could ever be a science textbook defies explanation. Genesis has been seen allegorically from 200AD onward. The point of Genesis is to establish God as creator of the universe and then as creator of Man, uniquely, in His own image and the story of the Fall. Once Genesis is out of the way, there is virtually nothing in the bible at all about the working of the physical world. That is not the point of it.
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
I've never felt that Darwin believed anything that was hostile to Creationism. The Creator breathed the life into a biological organism that is self replicating and self evolving.
Darwin was never an atheist of any way, shape or form.

But Creationism as it is currently understood is nothing but a form of repudiation of scientific knowledge. It is not even respectful of religion proper. Or even of monotheism, which it IMO offends quite directly.

The only sin is that ignorant and arrogant men try to make it all a random accident.

That can hardly be called a sin. It is just honest, and well reasonable, speculation.
 

sealchan

Well-Known Member
On the second to the last page of "Origin of the Species," Charles Darwin writes,

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

Darwin, apparently, was a theist. I suspect this one reference to the Creator was tangential to the rest of the book.
 
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