Skip to main content

Is Evolution the Enemy of Christianity?

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~

Evangelist T.T. Martin's books against the theory of evolution 
are sold at an outdoor stand in Dayton, Tennessee, 1925, 
scene of the Scopes trial.
Recently it has occurred to me that it makes perfect sense for Christian fundamentalists to oppose the teaching of evolution. After all, properly understood, evolution provides many arguments against belief in a god, or at least the Biblical claim that man was intended to have dominion over the animals.

A comment by the biologist J.B.S. Haldane on god’s inordinate fondness for beetles, in “What is Life,” immediately springs to mind: “The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more, as compared with somewhat less than 9,000 species of birds and a little over 10,000 species of mammals.”

If we assume that beetles, through mutation and natural selection, evolved over hundreds of millions of years to fill many, many different niches in nature, in isolation from one another, then the existence of so many different species, while surprising, can be reasonably explained. However, that a god would create so many different species of one type of insect in one day begs the question, “Why?” If, as the Bible implies, the animals were created for the benefit of man, how does the existence of so many species of beetles benefit man?

One might question my assumption that the Bible implies that the animals were created for the benefit of man. Well, let’s look at Genesis 1:26: “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’”

If, immediately after they were created, man was given dominion over all the cows and other beasts, doesn’t that imply they were created to be ruled by man for man’s benefit? Of course, the author of this passage does seem curiously unaware that cows do not exist in the wild and thus couldn’t have been created by god. As we now know, man created cows from other species through centuries of selective breeding.

Do we really have dominion over all the animals? What about all those animal species we can seldom if ever control? [...] Malaria, for example, is a parasite spread via mosquito. I recently read a fascinating article about an Alaskan frog species which got me thinking about evolution and god. Scientists have discovered that this frog spends up to seven months of the winter frozen solid. Its heart and brain functions cease, so that by common definitions they are dead. But, they aren’t really dead as some cellular level processes continue while they are frozen, and they thaw out in the spring and continue on their merry way very much alive. Are these frogs so important to us that god would create such an exotic survival mechanism just for them? What’s wrong with plain old-fashioned hibernation, or dormant-seed type survival?

Do we really have dominion over all the animals? What about all those animal species we can seldom if ever control? There are millions of such species, including mice, rats, snakes, cockroaches, mosquitoes, flies, spiders, flatworms, fleas, ticks, lice, etc. Most such animals are a constant irritating impediment to man, if not downright deadly. Malaria, for example, is a parasite spread via mosquito. In 2010 there were an estimated 219 million cases of malaria, with about 660,000 cases being fatal. How can we be said to “have dominion” over such creatures? A lot of them prey on us for their own survival!

Then there are all those thousands of species which are extremely remote or only very recently discovered, like those deep sea creatures which put on incredible light shows, bacteria living over 2 miles underground, bacteria thriving in acid pools, fish with anti-freeze compounds in their blood in unfished Antarctic waters, and all those thousands of bacterial species on and in our bodies. In fact, because human cells are relatively large, there are more microbial cells in and on our bodies than human cells; and we depend on some of these – some of those in our guts, for instance - for our own survival. How can we be said to rule over such creatures?

It certainly appears that the animal creatures of the earth go their own way, struggling to survive against each other and man, ruled only by their environments, chance, and their own physical and mental abilities. Clearly, man rules over only a very few creatures, like barnyard animals and pet species. The vast majority of the earth’s creatures either never come into contact with man or competes with him for survival. This “dominion” claim just doesn’t square with what we observe so plainly in nature.

Many fundamentalists realize evolution is a serious problem undercutting their basic beliefs and so they reject it. But that leaves them with no sensible alternatives to explain the incredible variety and extraordinary fitness of millions of animal species obviously not under the dominion of man.

Here’s an interesting thought to toy with: if god didn’t give man dominion over the animals, as the Bible states, then maybe he didn’t really create them either, as the Bible also states.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

I can fix ignorance; I can't fix stupid!

By Bob O ~ I 'm an atheist and a 52-year veteran of public education. I need not tell anyone the problems associated with having to "duck" the "Which church do you belong to?" with my students and their parents. Once told by a parent that they would rather have a queer for their sons' teacher than an atheist! Spent HOURS going to the restroom right when prayers were performed: before assemblies, sports banquets, "Christmas Programs", awards assemblies, etc... Told everyone that I had a bladder problem. And "yes" it was a copout to many of you, but the old adage (yes, it's religious) accept what you can't change, change that which you can and accept the strength to know the difference! No need arguing that which you will never change. Enough of that. What I'd like to impart is my simple family chemistry. My wife is a Baptist - raised in a Baptist Orphanage (whole stories there) and is a believer. She did not know my religi