Christian/Catholic scientists how can that be?

[freakycooldude]

How can you believe in evolution and Christianity/Catholicism at the same time?! I know science majors who are religious, I don't get it! If you believe the bible, you believe in creationism, which is the word of God. If you believe in macro-evolution you don't believe in creationism, so you don't believe in the god of the bible. Therefore, if you believe in a god and evolution, you don't believe in the god of the bible, you believe in your own made up god, but you still call yourself christian!
Bigsteve:

God creating the first organisms to evolve is not what is said in the bible. It says he created all creatures as they are. I did not discern my "ideas" of micro and macro evolution. I only mentioned macro which is the only one that contradicts the bible. You have not answered my question.
Zaerne that is a very thought provoking answer!

 

[Nightwind:Mwahahat]

Different Christians (and Jews) believe in the their scriptures in many different ways. Christians accept Jesus as their savior and follow his teachings. Jesus never taught how the universe began.

You can believe in the spiritual message of the Bible 100% and still believe in science.

There is nothing in Christianity that says you have to accept the Bible as the "word of God." You might want to consider where you got that idea. Lots of Christians accept that the Bible was written by men (heck, a lot of the books are named after those men!) and thus is limited by the knowledge and understanding of those men.

 

[BigSteve]

why even try this, its been tried before and explained away like so much other junk questions.....

you can believe in both like this: life evolves to suit the environmental changes going on around it, but the very first organisms were created by god, evolution does not define abiogenesis

also, youre idea of macro-evolution being different from micro-evolution is a bit off....macro-evolution is a series of micro-evolutions that result in major changes

 

[holidaydetective]

I don't believe the whole evolution bit, either. But the theistic evolutionists have their own beliefs as to how the world started. Yes, the beliefs are very different from ours, but they haven't outright rejected God Himself. They believe that God created the world through evolution. You can be a Christian and not believe that everything in the Bible was credible. (I personally don't recommend that, but I don't think you'd go to Hell for it).

 

[Zaerne]

Oh, I absolutely love your question!

I know you probably have heard this before but science and faith does not have to necessarily butt heads. I can believe in the Genesis account of the Bible and believe in evolution because I believe that these accounts do not contradict each other. First of all, the two have different purposes. The Bible was not written in order to propose a scientific theory. It was written to spread moral and religious truth. And, while evolution is our best theory for the biodiversity of the universe, it fails to explain their meaning.

Another reason is that Genesis does not have to be taken literally. In fact, it doesn't make full sense when taken literally because a day is defined by the time it takes for the earth to rotate. Since light was first created, not the planet nor the sun, "day" defined as it is would not exist. Therefore, we must infer the purpose of Genesis is not to account for how God literally created the universe. It can be said to be a metaphor, and just as we would not scold a writer for writing, "It's raining cats and dogs" when we they mean "It's raining very hard," we cannot fault the writer of Genesis for a bad scientific theory when no scientific theory has been proposed.

Also, there are two accounts of creation, one in Genesis I, and the other in Genesis 2. And in both accounts, it says nothing about creating man out of nothing. The account of Genesis 2, actually says that man was made out of "the clay of the ground." The body of man did not have to be created by God in an instant. It could have been created through evolution. We should also note that in Genesis 1, God states "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." However, God is a spiritual being, not a physical one, so that act of creation was the creation of the soul that God could have joined to the physical one he had already created.

 

[charis]

The Creationism debate is solely a product of some American Protestant groups.

In the Catholic Church, when Augustine was working on the first Bible (400 AD), he and Herodotus said that this Bible was a book of faith and morals only - not science.

However the world was created, we believe God did it. Can we address all these Creationism questions to Protestants instead of Christians?

 

[KingLeonidas]

Easy, they leave there religious beliefs at home when they go to work.

 

[JohnnyMac]

People can disagree about this and a variety of other theological concepts. What's most important is whether or not a person places his or her faith in Christ Jesus for salvation. A person's standing with God is not for any of us to decide. Rather, we are called upon to have love and mercy for our fellow human beings, and to spread the good news of salvation through Christ. All people are in need of Christ. All people need our love, compassion and mercy, and our prayers.

I'm guilty on occasions of not loving my fellow human beings the way Christ teaches us. A chapter that helps me is 1 Corinthians 13.

God bless.

 

[KnowHim]

Who are these Christian/Catholic scientists? You're gonna have to give me some kind of source. I won't believe until I see it.

 

[lawrenceba549]

Excuse me; why do you think it HAS to be either/or? Can it not be a tenet of ones belief that the reason evolution is allowing itself to explain some things is that God has decided that man is ready to understand it now, when man's mind could not have understood it before?
The only thing you proved with your question is that you have both a closed mind (despite your love of science) and a hard heart.

 

[ChristianSoldierofGod]

Most catholics don't accept evolution.

 

[HayleyM]

http://biblelight.net/darwin.htm

Check that link out.

Many don't believe in Creationism, this is true. And many like to form their own theory of Christianity. I can't say if it is wrong or right, but they do.

One explanation for some might be that the bible is symbolic in many ways versus literal fact. Some at least interpret it that way. Perhaps the explosion of a singularity, aka the Big Bang, as some believe might have been controlled/set off by God. And/Or maybe he put the starting bacteria on Earth that humans would evolve from.

Personally, I don't believe science and Christianity are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

 

[JohnnyPolitics]

Catholics accept it because they know that people will ridicule them for not believing scientific facts like the jesus freaks in the Bible belt don't.

In truth though, it doesn't make any sense. Evolution essentially killed "God" and I'm really glad for that because we don't need another terrorist.

 

[Peadar]

Hi there, were you aware that the Big bang theory was invented by a Catholic Priest called Georges Lemaître ?

Catholicism has a long history of science and reason, dating back to people like Roger Bacon OFM (developer of scientific method) and Duns Scotus (Developer of the intuitive cognition).

Most Catholics believe in Evolution, even the Pope has gone so far as to embrace it.

We believe this, because we do not see a literal interpretation of the bible as correct or helpful, we use the bible as a moral guide - rather than an authoritative scientific text.

Hope that Helped.

 

[Andrew1]

I may be not be a Christian, but I know that many folk in that category believe that God set up the planet, animals, us, and then we evolved. It doesn't quite fit, but that's my understanding- the Bible isn't 100% literal.