Are Evolution and Christianity Completely Incompatible?

[Aaran]

If the Bible is translated literally: No chance for compatibility whatsoever.

If the Bible is translated metaphorically: maybe. To be honest, I'm not sure (but I'm very curious as to what the talking snake and the Garden of Eden are supposed to represent in that case). The only problem with metaphorical translation is that it provides thousands of possible interpretations, creating a shitload of potential disagreement within the Christian/Catholic community. So really, there'd be no way of knowing if the interpretation you're looking at is the right one. There's be no way of knowing if anyone got it right. :/

The tale of Genesis and its attendant Garden of Eden is just a plagiarism of the earlier ancient Greek myth of Pandora's box. Both fictions have all their major themes in common - a deity creates a male, followed by a female whose only reason for existing seems to be to act as a companion and toady to her man. In spite of firm warnings to the contrary administered by the overseeing deity the silly woman taps into a source of forbidden knowledge and in doing so unleashes all manner of suffering upon humankind. The story, in the metaphorical sense, imparts sexism and a mistrust of rationality. 

I don't feel we need to exercise such hesitancy when trying to appraise the validity of one interpretation of scripture over another. If you consider that most of the people to whom the embryonic version of Christianity was preached were the uneducated goatherds and plebeians of the Palestinian desert, the likelihood that these unlettered people would be capable of discerning any profound metaphors or allegories in the things which they read would be greatly diminished. The authors of both testaments would have been aware of this, the things they wrote would have been exactly what they meant. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" means pretty much that. I'm convinced that the literal interpretation is the only justifiable one.

[Esquilax]

This page, <snipped> , gives reasons why evolution and Christianity can't be reconciled.

Does it bother you at all that the page is, well, dumb?

Here's just one excerpt :

Its teachings affect us more than most would like to admit, which are, fundamentally, diametrically opposed to Christianity. In evolution, new species arise from the deaths of others; therefore, death brought man into the world. The Bible teaches the opposite: man brought death into the world (Romans 5:12).
<snipped>

New species arise from the deaths of others? I object, sir: new species arise from the lives of new organisms. Those organisms that stay alive and spread that life by breeding are the engine of new species, not the ones that die. Those are the opposite, the failed ones, that don't propagate. Hell, there doesn't even necessarily have to be competition between species, as symbiotes and cooperative groups show. This assertion is wrong at every conceivable scale.

You think, next time, you could quote a guy who actually understands the subject he's seeking to speak on?

[Simon Moon]

I do not see how they could be compatible.

Evolution specifically precludes the existence of Adam and Eve.

No Adam and Eve, no breaking Yahweh's rule about eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. No eating the fruit, no fall. No fall, no original sin, no reason for god to sacrifice Jesus.

[Dystopia]

I do not see how they could be compatible.

Evolution specifically precludes the existence of Adam and Eve.

No Adam and Eve, no breaking Yahweh's rule about eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. No eating the fruit, no fall. No fall, no original sin, no reason for god to sacrifice Jesus.

I don't want to sound too obvious, but more than what the bible says I care about what Christians do in real life - A book is just words, it means nothing if people don't follow it or can't read it properly and decent critical thinking. From what I know, America seems to have a high number of creationists who think the bible is literally the word of god all mighty, but I've never personally met a Christian who believed in Creationism - In fact, some actually ridicule it and feel ashamed to be in the "same" group as those people (I'm European) - Intellectually it's a little dishonest to argue for compatibility between the two, but it's not abstractly impossible as the only requirement is to have a person who supports evolution and is a Christian.

I think the incompatibility between Christianity and X or Y scientific fact/theory is a bad way of appeal to ridicule and I don't like it. There's better ways to refute a Christian claim.

[Longhorn]

Theoretically, yes. It just doesn't fit with the holey book of nonsense and the story of dirt man and rib woman.

But in practice, a little mental stretching and saying 'metaphor' a lot could make it all work, in the mind of a theist.

[SamS]

New species arise from the deaths of others? I object, sir: new species arise from the lives of new organisms. Those organisms that stay alive and spread that life by breeding are the engine of new species, not the ones that die. Those are the opposite, the failed ones, that don't propagate. Hell, there doesn't even necessarily have to be competition between species, as symbiotes and cooperative groups show. This assertion is wrong at every conceivable scale.

The reasoning is that for the betterment of a species, weaker or less "evolved" species must be eliminated. I won't venture into Master Race/Hitler/Pol Pot/Evolution justifies genocide/etc territory here, but the idea is that a species will not evolve into unless its weaker members are unable to reproduce, such as by geographic separation, death, or whatever (symbiotic relationships only go so far). By evolution, if certain primitive earlier "humans" didn't die out, and let our ancestors propagate, we wouldn't be here. In that sense, I can see why he says that through the deaths of other species did the human race come into existence.

[ignoramus]

I suppose now would be a good time to slip in the classic:


The Buffalo Theory as told by Cliff Clavin: No one can explain this as well as Cliff Clavin, on Cheers. One afternoon at Cheers, Cliff Clavin was explaining the Buffalo Theory to his buddy Norm. and here's how it went:

"Well ya see, Norm, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

"In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first.

In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers."

[Esquilax]

The reasoning is that for the betterment of a species, weaker or less "evolved" species must be eliminated. I won't venture into Master Race/Hitler/Pol Pot/Evolution justifies genocide/etc territory here, but the idea is that a species will not evolve into unless its weaker members are unable to reproduce, such as by geographic separation, death, or whatever (symbiotic relationships only go so far). By evolution, if certain primitive earlier "humans" didn't die out, and let our ancestors propagate, we wouldn't be here. In that sense, I can see why he says that through the deaths of other species did the human race come into existence.

You're right in some respects, but I'd say wrong overall: those weaker members of a given species are equally capable of mutating the next beneficial trait as the stronger ones, after all. It's the traits themselves that matter, not where they come from.

Besides, we might not be here if those other human variants didn't die out, but that's only because we're a very specific byproduct of a certain genetic lineage. If they had remained alive, and their genes persisted in the gene pool, we might have gotten something different, but we would have still gotten something. The current gene pool didn't arise as a result of their deaths, that was just the environment that led to it. Death isn't required for evolution, it's just a mechanism that sometimes shapes it. If we were all immortal and had infinite space to exist in, evolution would still be happening; hence, evolution is not based in death.

[Whateverist]

I do not see how they could be compatible.

Christianity is only incompatible with evolution if you're doing it wrong, you know, literally.

[ignoramus]

And here we are bashing those poor catholic priests just because they are doing it wrong!