Reddit mentions of Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search For Common Ground Between God and Evolution

Sigh..

1. Evolution has been understood to exist for 500 years, and enjoys support by scientists in every country in every century. You're proposing a massive conspiracy that is infeasible. Furthermore, evolution is quite proven by the concept of DNA. The question that is the "theory" part is what drives the change in species. Modern theory consists of natural selection, genetic drift, and other factors which all come into play. After the discovery of DNA, it kind of became ridiculous to deny. We can manipulate genes, we can discover which gene is responsible for specific genetic variations, and we can track the change of species (for instance Avian Influenza) and use modern understanding to create vaccines for them. Quite simply denying evolution is like denying algebra. Both are fundamental cornerstones of their respective fields.
   
2. Of course they didn't interview 100% of scientists, but anyone that has taken a class in statistics understands that any decent survey should represent the overall group very well given an adequate percentage of randomised samples. The fact that you said what you did instead of suggesting the survey was biased or not random tells me that you are not capable of going further in this conversation, so I will direct you to a book by a Catholic Evolutionary Biologist:
   http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0060930497

That's an easy one, get "Finding Darwin's God":

http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0060930497

But you know, this problem has been resolved before, it's just the new version of Christianity called "fundamentalism" that has re-introduced this debate.

Here's a passage from over 1.5K years ago:

-- St. Augustine, "The Literal Meaning of Genesis" (written circa 401-415 AD)

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience."

"Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men."

"If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

"Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although 'they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.' [1 Timothy 1.7]"

St. Augustine is right to be worried. I was raised a YEC and I'm [now] an atheist. Creationism was one of the first dominos to fall, once I realized how much evidence there was against it I started questioning the other things I'd been taught to believe. Now I understand I was brainwashed and indoctrinated, but it was creationism that gave me my first glimpse of the light.

Hi. It looks like Dr ransom got to you first but it looks like he is going to say much of what I came here to say myself.

I'm a working engineer, highly educated in the sciences, and a devout Christian. I not only accept evolution but recognize it as being as much of a fact as gravity and I have no problem with homosexuality. I have also spoken, at length, on why neither of these two things are in conflict with scripture when it is read in its proper context, (eg.. with consideration of the styles of the original authors, their intended audiences, the historical context of the portions of the Bible being considererd, etc...).

What you are running into is the simple fact that the current, popular, approach of trying to treat the Bible as a scientific textbook on everything isn't what God intended.

If you have any questions that you don't feel others are answering, feel free to PM me and give me a shot at it. If nothing else, I'll point you at some good reading. :)

Like 'Finding Darwins God'

Kennity Miller, the author, is a Professor of Biology at Brown University and has written a host of essays and papers talking about the intersection of evolution and Christianity, (amongst other topics).

So he may be a good place for you to look too. :)

Creation and evolution can co-exist. Be careful not to force her into a false dichotomy.

To quote another person:

> I think your statement about the compatibility of orthodox Christian belief and the embrace of evolutionary theory is correct. So far as I can see, no contradiction between them obtains. I have Catholic friends who are both devout with respect to Church doctrine and fully supportive of modern evolutionary theory, and I find the theodicy and theology that proceed from that more elegant and robust than special-creationist alternatives. If one is going to proceed under the irrational assumptions of Christian theism in the first place, that seems to be a fairly rational way of proceeding from there. In any case, it doesn't place those Christians in the mental ditch so many drive themselves into with the anti-evolutionary bent, denying reason and evidence in abundance for evolutionary theory.

> Even so, I think you are dismissing the problem in a very simplistic fashion. While I just affirmed that evolution and orthodox Christian doctrine are compatible, evolution is nevertheless quite toxic in many cases to support for Christian belief. Many Catholics, for instance, have maintained a kind of faithful theistic evolution throughout their lives, but for many others, evolution seriously undermines faith in God because it in a significant sense makes God superfluous, an afterthought, an unnecessary part of the explanation.

> I think that explains why so many Catholics here militate against the evidence and the facts on the ground concerning evolution. The objection is NOT that evolution cannot be harmonized with Catholic doctrine -- manifestly, it can be -- but rather that evolution betrays a basic conceit many believers have about their status as humans. Christian theology exalts mankind in an ontological sense -- only man is imprinted with the imago dei, only man has the reasoning faculties to apprehend natural law and the noetic facilities for knowing God in a spiritual sense.

> Man is fallen, but that "fallenness" itself is proof of man's ontological primacy in the world; there is hubris in supposing man had somewhere to fall from in the first place.

> As Christian, I know I was guilty of this conceit. And while evolution does not and cannot discredit the idea that God made the universe, and utlimately designed the world so that man would be man, in such form that he might enventually be invested with a soul, fashioned in some dualistic way in God's image, evolution as a mechanical, natural process really takes the pride out of human exceptionalism. Darwin's dangerous idea was that we are animals in the most thoroughgoing sense, cousins of the chimpanzee and relatives of the lowly cabbage, or even the most virulent bacteria, if we are to trace our lineage back far enough.

> I suggest to you that some of the draw of Christian faith -- not all of it, but some -- obtains from this intuitive desire to classify oneself, one's kind as "special". Not just special in some parochial sense, but "cosmically special". Catholicism can still cater to this innate inclination, but it's a lot harder to cater to through the filter of evolutionary theory. Evolution places man as an ordinary leaf, like all the other leaves, or a very large and ancient tree. Many have a conceit grounded in the idea that man was "formed from the dust" in some special, hands-on way -- a custom job, or as they would say in the UK, "bespoke".

> Evolution works right against this conceit, and while doctrine and faith can be maintained in embracing it, evolution just kills a lot of the joy of the "specialness" many believers are enamored of. If evolution is true, God may still be the Creator, the one forming man with the imago dei, somehow, but it sure does look more remote and mechanistic than it used to. And of course, it continually provides the idea that this is just how things would look if God were imaginary, and that's something many believers understand, and resist strongly on those grounds.

The point of course is that they are compatible, but that one must be humble about it. As Pope John Paul II said when he was accepting evolution, "Truth cannot contradict truth". In other words, if you look at the evidence for evolution, it's very clear that it's correct in at least the broad sense even if some of the specifics are still being researched. From this, you have to ask how this applies to your world view - do you think it's a work of the devil or God is trying to test you or some other nonsense, or will you take it as another building block of truth and apply it where appropriate understanding that even if the entire body is evolved, without help, from a single celled organism that this says nothing about anything regarding souls or spirits or whatever they want to believe. Christians believe we leave the physical world behind when we die, so why fight over it being so special?

Edit:

I also recommend this if she has problems believing dating methods... it's a "Christian perspective" but it's accurate and explains it pretty well.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/RESOURCES/WIENS.html

And also a Christian biologist talking for 2 hours (with evidence!) about why evolution is true and ID is BS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg

And here is a book written about evolution from the Christian perspective (recommended by Dawkins in a video once), starting at $2.61 used paperback. Just buy her a copy and have it shipped to her.

http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0060930497

I HAVE THE ANSWER!!

Sorry, got excited there. The single best book I've ever read on evolution (and I've read a few) is Finding Darwin's God by Dr. Kenneth Miller, premier biologist, and devout Catholic.

He makes a very compelling (and surprising) argument that religious faith and evolution are not mutually exclusive, and states even that religion is strengthened by science. Richard Dawkins recommended it as the most concise explanation of evolution he's ever read, and he's flamingly anti-religious.

Edit: Stupid mistake.

Finding Darwin's God was pretty good.

Ken Miller has a book called Finding Darwin's God He's Catholic and a professor of biology at Brown. Notable for absolutely destroying ID arguments.

Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller is THE book to read on this topic. In the first half of the book, he talks about how all creationism versions (young earth, old earth and irreducible complexity) are not only bunk, but actually bad theology. Then in the second half he goes on the explain how evolution makes perfect sense given a God who gives us free will. In the end, I felt like evolution was actually proof for God, not against. Really, anyone with an interest in this topic should read this book. Amazon Link

I was a Jehovah's Witness for the first 24 years of my life. Very devout.

It's hard for me to know what these particular folks' motivation for being in the JWs is.

Here is what helped me:

Problems With a Global Flood, 2nd Edition: Witnesses are very literal about their interpretation of the bible. If they actually read this page it will go a long way toward dislodging the cornerstones of their faith.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller: A book about evolution that is not directly threatening to religion. It's written by the head of biology at Brown University. The science is solid. The theology is unsurprisingly weak. This book changed my life.

http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0060930497

If they make it that far, give them this one: Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. Not all of it applies to witnesses directly (they're not young-earth creationists, for example), but a lot of it still applies. This will supply many final nails for the coffin.

http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Vintage-Harris/dp/0307278778/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291101892&sr=1-1

One thing to keep in mind is that they're very unlikely to seek any of this out on their own. They'll view it as a sin. Your best bet is to print these texts out or buy them. Both books can be purchased on Amazon in used condition for almost nothing. Tell them you'll read their books if they read yours and hold them to it. That culture has a very strong intellectual conscience. Most witnesses are really decent people. They're just stuck in a totally stupid mind-trap.

Good luck! You're doing a great thing by trying to help these people.

I'm a Mormon who believes in evolution. In fact, in a recent discussion on r/lds and from what I've seen in the majority of my conversations with other Mormons most of us do. Links to discussions [1](http://www.reddit.com/r/lds/comments/eiu9e/as_a_member_of_the_church_what_is_your_opinion_on/?sort=controversial
) and 2

We also have doctrines specific to Mormonism that seem to support evolutionary theory to me such as an un-determined period of actual time for the "days of creation" (creation may have taken place outside of time all together), in much of LDS specific scripture God created the world is replaced with God organized the world and that matter (and spirit) has always existed and cannot be created nor destroyed. More on Mormonism and Evolution here

My personal belief (read not church doctrine and pure speculation on my part) is that evolution was the mechanism that God used to create the world we live in. His role was in essence to guide the seemingly random chance of natural selection to make us and everything else what he wanted it to be. Thus religion answers the why question and science answers the how. For an overview on the Why read this. When everything was the way he wanted it to begin the test of man-kind he sent down the first spirit to inhabit a body created through evolution. Making Adam the first complete man with body and spirit.

An interesting read on all this is Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. I disagree with the author on several theological points (he's catholic) but reading it helped me sort out what I thought God's role in evolution was.

Edit- An article about how evolution is taught at BYU Link

I have not read it but i've heard that Kenneth Millers Finding Darwin's God is really good. He is a catholic and was an expert witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case.

Here is a short snippet from his 2006 lecture on intelligent design: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk
You can find the whole two hour lecture on youtube and i highly recommend it if you haven't seen it.

I need to go mow my lawn unfortunately, but for start Ken Miller, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University is wonderfully smart and wrote a book on evolution and god. Was decent. But yeah, he would count as a brilliant guy I think. Google is your aid if you want more.

Different atheists think different things about it. And here where I live, most theists accept it. Why is an atheists understanding of something outside of atheism any more relevant than say Ken Miller's?

Why address atheists on that point at all?

Is your main concern actually something other than evolution?

Your repeated focus on evolution as if it was somehow atheism - and your unwillingness to be moved from that - is utterly frustrating. Why do you persist?

I study evolutionary biology as a hobby and have read many books on the subject, several of which actually argue in favor of a designer (a position I disagree with based on the evidence). The facts and evidence overwhelmingly support the history of the eye's development as I have described it whether you agree with it or not. If you are interested in the subject, I highly recommend checking out "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth R. Miller and "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes" by Stephen Jay Gould, both of which are very informative and excellent reads.

If you are a blind, ocean-dwelling creature who's food tends to hang out near the surface, a mutation that allows a cell to detect light would make it easier to find food, thus increasing the likelihood that you would survive and pass on that mutation. Furthermore, if another mutation multiplied the number of those light detecting cells, you might be able to better determine your distance to the surface and more precisely hone in on your meal without getting too close to the surface and putting yourself in potential danger. If a further mutation granted you enough of the light-detecting cells that you determine movement, you would be in a much better position to both find food and evade predators.

It is small mutations like this that have selective advantages that result in the development of things like eyes and the rest of our organs. It's not that the creatures "knew what they wanted to see"; it's that mutations provided sensory inputs that increased the likelihood of those creatures surviving. It is the survivors that pass on their genes and spawn the next generation. This is happening constantly in all living things, humans included, and that is an indisputable fact. It can be and has been observed.