Opinion of Theistic Evolution

[Wiggle Your Yummy Moist Preggers Cake Ben Shapiro]

I just want to see the opinion of this compromise between faith and science.

Negative (Theist)

[Free Speech Enjoyer]

Positive (Theist)

[DC Al Fine]

Positive (Theist)

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Neutral (Theist).  At my church, we recently finished our Sabbath school (the SDA equivalent of Sunday school) on creation, and it said that it is not possible as a theory for the origin of life.  Most in my church teach a literal six-day creation (which is also primarily how I was raised), which I don't really take much of a position on, although I certainly think it was possible.  While I understand where they're coming from on theistic evolution, I don't entirely agree, both from a scientific and religious viewpoint.  Scientifically speaking, there is little doubt that species adapt to their environments in order to survive.  Personally, I believe that this is the design of an all-powerful God rather than simple chance, but I'm not here for that debate.  From a religious perspective, most of the more conservative Adventists who advocate vegetarianism point to the fact that in Genesis, humans are originally designed as vegetarians.  While that's true, it's flawed as an argument for becoming vegetarian since the Bible also describes all the other animals as being initially designed as vegetarians as well.  Since we know that there are many animals today (both carnivores and omnivores) that are designed to eat meat, then this would require some sort of change (evolutionary change, if you will) after Adam and Eve fell into sin that made them start eating meat.

[H. Ross Peron]

Positive (Theist)

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

Positive (Theist)

Also, 'compromise between faith and science' is a horrible way to put it.

[bedstuy]

I don't think that's a useful term.  It's like saying you believe in theistic geology or theistic agronomy.

God is not a part of evolutionary theory at all.  But, you can believe in both God(s) and evolution.  There's no necessary conflict between the two ideas as such. 

[Chief Justice PiT]

     Positive (Atheist). They are cool with science, and that is the important part of it for me.

[afleitch]

Generally neutral. People of different faiths who subscribe to ‘theistic evolution’ often do so on the basis that their deity or their god has to have involvement in the process in order to validate their belief system. Theistic evolution is also a fairly redundant term because different people define the theistic intervention at different times. At it’s loosest it’s the idea that a creator god created the universe and established it’s laws that eventually led to the evolutionary process (which to me seems more like a deist rather than a theist interpretation) which doesn’t overly concern me. Whether it was God, Zeus or Brian the Fish it has no implication on scientific understanding. It’s a matter of faith. If however people believe in a more direct intervention; for example that a deity jumped in and out and influenced the process while it was underway, creating beneficial mutations then it is treading on toes.

Evidence would have to be given to explain why an external influence was required to explain parts of the evolutionary process. There is nothing in current evolutionary theory to suggest that anything other than evolutionary theory is needed to explain evolution.

One of the problems I have though is that regardless of where ‘god fits in’, it is ultimately an anthropocentric concern. The idea the laws of the universe leading to evolution was just for us or that we are the ‘end product’ (which is contrary to evolutionary theory in itself) of it all is incredulous.

[DemPGH]

From the standpoint of science, negative. From the standpoint of a theist who is trying to grapple with the fact that life was not all created nearly simultaneously, then positive, because there's no other way to settle the dissonance. And at this point in time, evolution is a process that happens.

But Theistic anything is simply not science - science deals with material reality in a way that posits models, processes, tests, hypotheses, verifiability, falsifiability, and so on. Theistic concepts or the supernatural don't really allow for that. What if God is not supernatural? Same problem. Where is He, She, It?

I think I've said before here, you don't make what's in the world fit your books; rather, you make your books fit what is in the world. That is science.

[anvi]

Positive, to the degree that such theists believe that evolution accounts for the origin of species, which it does.  But I think there remains an ambiguity with regard to the beginning of the process.  A non-theistic evolutionary theorist would claim that what emerged from the primordial "organic soup" did so because of the nature of chemical processes and, to wit, a local "accident."  A theist who believed in evolution could, it seems, take two kinds of position with regard to this beginning point in the life process.  They could see intentional design at work in the formation of life.  Or, they might take some newly construed deist stance, and say that God formulated the laws of nature at the origin of the cosmos and then just stood aside and let the process play out.  Since, it seems to me, nothing like iron-clad evidence could be called upon to guarantee any of these three possible conclusions (including the "accidental" characterization in the first), there is no strictly rational basis for accepting or rejecting any one of them.  My positive evaluation of a theistic evolutionary perspective owes to its acknowledgment of what I consider to be demonstrable scientific fact about the origin of species.  That's a vastly superior position to one that would deny evolution in the name of theism.   

[Northeast Rep Snowball]

     Positive (Atheist). They are cool with science, and that is the important part of it for me.

Also, by this I mean that I find it silly to not believe in evolution, as it is to say you don't need water to live, so if you do believe in god, I'm glad you have the rational to believe in evolution.

[DemPGH]

Positive, to the degree that such theists believe that evolution accounts for the origin of species, which it does.  But I think there remains an ambiguity with regard to the beginning of the process.  A non-theistic evolutionary theorist would claim that what emerged from the primordial "organic soup" did so because of the nature of chemical processes and, to wit, a local "accident."     

Accident is a tough word to use. Life may well be inevitable. That's because experiments have been done with an early Earth-like atmosphere in which amino acids and other materials coalesce into organic compounds - on their own. No, a frog or a slug hasn't yet crawled out, but with millions and billions of years behind evolution, it was a very revealing and impactful experiment.

My positive evaluation of a theistic evolutionary perspective owes to its acknowledgment of what I consider to be demonstrable scientific fact about the origin of species.  That's a vastly superior position to one that would deny evolution in the name of theism.   

Sure. To say that evolution does not happen period is to imply the "God is fooling us into thinking he doesn't exist" horrible awful argument, or else to simply deny reality.

One of the worst arguments I have ever heard against non-theistic evolution is that no one has ever seen anything evolve. Well of course not, but we've seen things mutate, and actual evolution takes an extremely long time. So instead we have rock layers millions of years old and millions of years apart in which are fossils - they "recorded" the evolutionary process. 

[Wiggle Your Yummy Moist Preggers Cake Ben Shapiro]

Positive (Theist)

Also, 'compromise between faith and science' is a horrible way to put it.

That is essentally what Theistic Evolution is. What could be a better way to put it?

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

Positive (Theist)

Also, 'compromise between faith and science' is a horrible way to put it.

That is essentally what Theistic Evolution is. What could be a better way to put it?

What is there to 'compromise'? It's not like 'faith and science' are two diametric and internally consistent poles that were at loggerheads until somebody forged a grand bargain. Theistic evolution is a theological proposition, not really a scientific one at all, and as a theological proposition it's entirely in accord with, for example, Hooker's latitudinarian scholasticism or the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. There's no compromise involved because it's a concept that's worked out on one 'side' of this false dichotomy according to terms that existed on that 'side' in the first place. The fact that what's being fed into the Hookerian/Wesleyan analytical program is information arrived at through the methodology of the natural sciences is really incidental to the type of theological conclusion that this is. 'Compromise between faith and science'? No, this is the product of a process internal to a particular type of faith that also happens regarding a variety of other things.

[Sic Semper Fascistis]

Neutral. I do not subscribe to it, but it makes perfect sense for a Theist to believe in it, and contrary to creationism etc. it does not constitute an overstep of religion into the realm of science.

[Wiggle Your Yummy Moist Preggers Cake Ben Shapiro]

Neutral. I do not subscribe to it, but it makes perfect sense for a Theist to believe in it, and contrary to creationism etc. it does not constitute an overstep of religion into the realm of science.

Theistic Evolution IS creationism.

[DC Al Fine]

Neutral. I do not subscribe to it, but it makes perfect sense for a Theist to believe in it, and contrary to creationism etc. it does not constitute an overstep of religion into the realm of science.

Theistic Evolution IS creationism.

Definition fight!!!!

[Redalgo]

Positive (Atheist)    

[HoosierPoliticalJunkie]

Positive (Theist)

[Donerail]

Positive (Theist)

[Sopranos Republican]

Positive (Theist)

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

At least they aren't looking at the overwhelming evidence we have pointing towards evolution and denying it, so positive (atheist).