Can a Christian believe in evolution and do Christians believe neanderthals were human?

[jinglebelly]

Just curious

I've always imagined that the'days' of creation might correspond to epochs of evolution. People who insist on literal interpretation of religious texts have a very poor grasp of the nature of language and oral history.

It's a shame that extremist/fundamentalist Christians are so much more vocal that (rather like militant Islamists, I guess) people come to assume that if you're a Christian you must be one of these nutters. Most people aren't.

ThePerfectFather - I am struggling to understand what your point in this is. Earlier you said you only have a (limited) respect for people who believe their text 100% literally. But then you said they are morons for believing it that way?

So, you have decided there is only one way to "do" religion, and it is stupid?

But then you say I am wrong for believing in a way which doesn't make me a moron, just because it doesn't match up with the only way that you consider religion should be allowed to work.

I think your definition of how religion works, and how Christians are "allowed" to interpret the Bible is very narrow, and one which the vast majority of Christians down the ages would disagree with. There has never been a time when all Christians believed the same things, or interpreted the Bible in exactly the same way. There have been debates and arguments and splits in the church almost from day 1, many of them over issues like how the Bible can be read.

The Bible doesn't say "God changes his mind about stuff", but if you believe (as I do) that the Bible was written by humans, with an imperfect understanding of what God wanted, then it is perfectly possible to read the Bible and say "People at that time thought that God wanted X, but this was affected by their experience and culture. We have an improved understanding of some things from what they knew, and can reconsider whether this text can be looked at differently"

So - sex before marriage. In Bible times, if you had sex you got pregnant. A single woman had no source of income except maybe through prostitution, and would not have been able to support a child. She would also be very unlikely to then ever find a husband who would take on an "immoral" woman and her illegitimate child. So for a man to have sex with an unmarried woman would have been a sin, because it condemned her to a terrible life. Equally for him to have sex with someone else's wife would have been a sin, as there would be unfaithfulness to the husband, plus the chance of leaving another man to raise his child. The sin was in the harm, and the harm (then and there) was always serious, so sex outside of marriage was sinful.

That is no longer the situation - women and children have rights, and a single mother can support herself and her children and provide a good life for them. There is no harm, so there is no sin.

The people who wrote the Bible could not imagine a world very different from the one they knew, and the way things had always been, so they believed the message God gave them would apply to all people and places, rather than adding explanations and caveats.

Amuminscotland -sorry I was being a bit facetious in just focusing on the negative 'though shalt nots', but the argument and the problem is the same, if not moreso, for the personal caring god you describe.

Presuming this god is the creator, and created life and human beings through the means of evolution doesn't that leave some major inconsistencies. I mean why would a god who worries about the happiness and personal self esteem of each individual create those individuals through the pitiless process of evolution.

Evolution works because some individuals die young, others die childless, others see their children die. It is not nice. It works through disease, and predators, and accidents, and infidelity, and violence and conflict.

People keep saying evolution and religion are about different things. But if you believe in a creator god, when you learn about the means of creation does that not shake your views of him?

I guess I don't find it any harder than I would a creator God who did it in 6 days, and then made people cope with the disease, predators, etc. Suffering is a big problem either way, and so far I haven't found any answer that makes a lot of sense. But, to me, the Biblical idea that we are suffering these things because we weren't obedient enough is even worse!

Perfect, you do realize that going by the Bible alone (and no interpretation) is a relatively modern departure for Christianity? People didn't even decide which books to include in the Bible for centuries after Christ died.

It's a bit silly to pretend that the Bible must be the only way of knowing about the Christian God - imo, to do that is to fetishize a book.

LittleRedDragon - the Bible that Christianity has ended up with is clear. It's the Word of God. It consistently states this. There's nothing about the phrase "the Word of God" that means you can choose the bits you like. They may have left books out, and some of the text may have been messed up, but it's not been changed hugely.

And yes, of course it's the only way to know about the Christian God. The people who were meant to have been around at the time that all this was preached - by the Son of God no less - have to be considered the only valid source of God's message. If you think some "Christian Scholar" can come along and reinterpret the Bible to suit more modern climes well...frankly he'd have to leave out an absolute ton of stuff from the New Testament even. It's brutal.

AMumInScotland - you've got my point exactly, so I don't know where the confusion is. If you're a slave to the scriptures I think you're a fool, but you are more deserving of respect for at least committing to your relegion properly.

What I hate and have zero respect for is people who claim to follow a relegion, but then sort of make it up for themselves. It's a fairly weak assertion isn't it? "I'm a Christian, but I don't really believe all that bible stuff and just think of God as a nice benevolent guy that happens to agree perfectly with my moral outlook". Weak sauce!

You said:
"So, you have decided there is only one way to "do" religion, and it is stupid?"

Yeah pretty much. I generally have a low opinion of people who consider themselves relegious anyway because I think relegion is a terrible thing however you want to look at it.

But what's worse for me is people who are not only deluded enough to "believe in God", but then don't even have the decency to be true to their chosen faith. Call yourself a God-Worshipping Pagan or something more reasonable, but if you're not following the Bible you're not a Christian according to....the Bible! To claim that it's ok to be a modern revisionist Christian is just saying "I like the idea of believing in God, but I can't stand the idea of actually reading the Bible".

Well, I suggest you try. Read the whole of the Old and New Testament and then get back to me. I've read it and it was pretty clear to me that what God wants is obedience to his Word. Not some wishy-washy CofE cop-out version of Christianity!

Neanderthals were human - the reason I think this is because it's now known there was a certain amount of interbreeding between homo sapiens and Neanderthals. So we're all a bit Neanderthal!

ThePerfectFather - I really think you are missing the point of Christianity if you think that the Bible (even though it describes itself as "The Word of God") is intended to be the centre of our religion.

Christianity has always been about having a direct relationship with God, which is possible because of Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection, and occurs via the direct influence of the Holy Spirit within a person. The Bible is most certainly not the only way to know about the Christian God. Even those who take it far more literally than I do would not say that about it. We can know the Christian God by having a direct personal relationship with Him.

The phrase "The Word of God" doesn't automatically mean "The words dictated by God" it can just as easily mean "The word about God" - you are choosing your interpretation of it every bit as much as I am.

And I most certainly do not say "I don't believe all that Bible stuff" - I believe in it whole-heartedly, in the way in which I believe it was always meant to be believed. Which is not as an alternative to scientific ways of describing the world, but as an additional way of looking at the meaning and purpose behind the world. I can believe that God created the world and everything in it, while believing that the first part of Genesis was written as a religious statement rather than a scientific one.

perfect, how can it be clear when different Christian denominations don't agree on which books to include?! Not to get into the question of translation.

I agree with muminscotland - 'the Word of God' is often understood to mean 'communication about God', as well as meaning Christ, the person who came to communicate God to humanity.

I don't think you have any proof that people contemporary with Christ considered the Bible to be the only way to learn about God. Certainly, that view was not prevalent for centuries after Christ's death. It is a very modern, very Protestant view, which which the Orthodox and Catholic Churches (the two biggest Christian groups) still have serious issues.

I think you're influenced by modern Protestant thought (which is all around us in supposedly 'secular' Western society), to believe this is the only kind of Christianity there ever could have been.

So do you basically feel that the Bible is just sort of a 'rough guide' to Christianity, and that it's your so called "personal relationship" with God that matters?

Because as I keep reiterating, that really isn't what Jesus' message was. Find me some passages where he says that the Bible is not that important. If you're saying "oh ignore the Bible for the sake of argument" then you're not a Christian.

Sorry, but that's my opinion. You're someone who sort-of believes in a Christian God, but not the ACTUAL Christian God from the Bible, just the version that you like the sound of. Ridiculous.

And LittleRedDragon - the people who were his contempories didn't need the Bible, they had Jesus himself to talk to and listen to.

If, as you claim, the Bible was not seen as a cornerstone of the Christian faith until years later (not sure this is true by the way) surely that would be because word-of-mouth stories and accounts about Jesus would have been prevalent? The sons and daughters of the apostles would have been able to talk about Jesus and the parables of the New Testament with second-hand certainty.

The Old Testament, however, is part of the Bible. You continue to ignore it and the far more hands-on God that features in those books of the Bible. Christians may want to focus on the slightly more liberal New Testament, but make no mistake - the Old Testament is included in there for a reason.

As I said, Jesus is very specific about the Old Testament. If you're not living by it, I think you're delusional about what relegion actually is. If you want some quasi-spiritual relationship with YOUR IDEA of God, you cannot cherry-pick another faith just because it's more convenient. It's disingenuous!

I really get so pissed off when atheists tell me how my religion is meant to work.

Since you know so much, maybe you can explain how we are meant to "live by" the Old Testament, while also "living by" what St Peter says about clean and unclean animals?

1. HOw could Jesus say anything about the bible when it was written long after his death?

and

2. How can you follow the whole bible as the word of god when some of it contradicts each other? You can't follow everything in the old testament as well as the new.

Are you really living your life by the old testament Perfect Father? I doubt you follow everything you are meant to do as set out in Revelations.

He isn't. He thinks we'd be morons if we did. But we're hypocrites if we don't. And he's the world expert on how religion works, despite those minor problems.

Perfect, I wasn't talking about what I feel (although yes, that's more or less it). I was talking about the history of Christianity, and trying to explain that it's actually a relatively recent idea that Christians should use the Bible as their first and only guide to the faith.

It is most certainly true that the Bible was not seen as the only source of truth, for many centuries after Christ's life. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches, as I have explained, still believe that the Bible should be read in the light of Holy Tradition.

This isn't my 'opinion', it's Christian History 101. You might want to disagree on all sorts of grounds, but you shouldn't pretend your Bibliocentric focus is the original or only way.

LRD - But much of the Catholic church is totally fabricated anyway. It's intricacies were devised by power-hungry men as a way of controlling people yet further through relegion and throughout history it was a hugely political force. The Pope is an invention. There is a flimsy basis in the scripture for the Pope, based on a single passage. The idea to elect a pope and claim that he is God's representative is just hilarious and all the fluff added on top is just more convoluted crap invented to make people feel that it's austere and relegious when in reality, I think Jesus would probably despise it based on his attitude to large and wealthy "churches" in the Bible.

BuzzLiteBeer - the Bible was written "long after Jesus' death" was it? Interesting take on biblical history. It may have been collected into one volume at a later date, but the scriptures that the Old Testament is based on are ancient.

Read "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expounding_of_the_Law" which details Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. Note that the Old Testament was not swept aside the way many "moderate" (i.e. in my opinion phony) Christians have tried to.

I am sure we can carry this on forever. Fundamentally, we disagree. I've made my point clear, people who fall into the categories I've mentioned are bound to be offended or disagree with what I've said and that's not something we can get past. It's like someone criticising your Nationality, I guess. It's something that's hard to change and isn't ever going to really leave you.

If you think you have a personal relationship with God and that parts of the Bible are not applicable to you - Old or New testament, it doesn't matter - then that's your decision of course. But I personally think that the very fact the Bible is so open to interpretation is what makes the relegion preposterous in the first place.

However, interpretation is very different from simply ignoring. And that's the real difference. Yes, people interpret passages in different ways, but they don't ignore or gloss over. The Bible is clear about homosexuality - if you are not anti-gay, you're not following the Bible. You're following a modern interpretation and forming, essentially, yet another offshoot from an already fractured relegion.

Perfect, you believe the Catholic Church to be largely 'fabricated'. That's fine. Many people also believe the Bible to be largely 'fabricated'. That's fine too. But you surely must accept you can no more prove that sola scriptura is correct, than you can prove the Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican approaches are correct.

Buzz is right that the Bible was written a fair while after Jesus's death, btw.

I'm afraid I'm going to be rude now, but this is not a matter of us 'disagreeing' or having different 'opinions'. You are woefully ill-informed, and we are simply trying to give you some basic facts to help you understand the origins of the Bible and of Christianity.

I'm not making a case for what I believe personally, I'm very simply telling you what the history is.

Btw, you say the 'basis in scripture' for the Pope is 'flimsy'. What I'm trying to get across to you is, why should scripture be the ultimate authority for Christianity? Before Martin Luther, no-one had suggested it should be so.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

You may prefer Luther's ideas to those that pre-date Luther, and that's perfectly fine. But it's anachronistic to judge something that pre-dates sola scriptura, by that dictum.

I'd still like to know how ThePerfectFather thinks anyone, ever, has managed to believe all of the New Testament and all of the Old Testament and live by them, simultaneously.

Leviticus 11:4 "'There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, but you must not eat them. The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is ceremonially unclean for you

Acts 10:11 and he saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground, and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. A voice came to him, ?Get up, Peter, kill and eat!? But Peter said, ?By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.? Again a voice came to him a second time, ?What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.?

I think it would take some serious mental gymnastics to believe we have to live by both of those at the same time! Obviously, the Christian church has never believed we have to do that, right back from the days of St Peter.

It really isn't a matter of us having different, equally valid, viewpoints. It's a matter of ThePerfectFather talking complete nonsense to bolster up his case against religion, by making out we are all stupid and/or hypocritical for believing it, and that we haven't even he sense to realise our error.

Fair enough if he doesn't believe it, but making a straw man in order to "prove" we're stupid is a pretty low form of debate.

ThePerfectfather, I am not sure I understand what type of Christian you are. Are you CofE or some other denomination? Are you saying that Christians should follow everything that the Old Testament says?

I don't know about low form of debate, but certainly it's odd having someone insist he knows best what Christianity is all about, and insist that's wrong.

Why did I waste my life studying this stuff, eh?

I am being an arrogant snob and I know it, but I do get immensely fed up with the number of people who are really, really ignorant about Christian history, who've clearly never studied it and yet who assume you can make assumptions about it all based on a little like Wikipedia-browsing and vague memories of Religious Studies lessons at school.

oh I have misunderstood, it appears he isn't a Christian at all.

LRD - it's bizarre isn't it? I've never heard anyone quite so dogmatic about what Christianity is about, and I've argued (both on here and in RL) with Christians across the whole spectrum. And yet someone who thinks we're all stupid if we believe it is still somehow convinced that we have to believe it all and couldn't possibly be part of a long tradition of thinking about our faith.

I see you did not answer my question about living by revelations?

I've always thought it a little convienient that people use it to be anti-gay yet so few of the same people are anti-football, or anti-shellfish, or anti-modern clothing. Or for that matter, anti-killing people. I've never yet met someone who can explain to me why one line of a book of the Old Testament is so important yet the rest of it can be ignored so easily.
Anyone?

claig - yes it's very odd, he's the most dogmatic Biblical fundamentalist I've ever met, while not believing a word of it himself

MuminScotland - it's a depressingly common form of ignorance, though. I'm teaching about the medieval English Catholic Church, and the only ones who knew it was different from the C of E were the two who'd been brought up Catholic. The rest find it very hard to imagine a time when people hadn't thought of isolating the Bible as the only spiritual guide - and my students are second-year undergraduates at a decent university.

Are you Catholic/Anglican yourself? I'm only being nosy, but I imagine it must be very depressing if you're Catholic and have to keep explaining why you listen to anything except the Bible.