The central issue, and problem, of this thread, is a subcurrent in contemporary Christianity which is a form of paranoia. For reasons which are often more concerned with personal demagoguery than with doctrinal orthodoxy, influential members of the Christian community have advanced--in the not-quite one hundred and fifty years of the public discussion of evolution--the thesis that acceptance of a theory of evolution will inevitably lead to a denial of the existence of a deity. Certainly, let it be acknowledged there are a great many people who espouse this point of view precisely for reasons of doctrinal orthodoxy. For many, and perhaps most, of the religiously devout who reject a theory of evolution, the appearance of a denial of doctrinal orthodoxy both invalidates the theory, and reveals it for an atheistic assault on their own beliefs.
The member that began this thread placed it in Spirituality and Religion as opposed to Science and Mathematics. Although to the observer not exercised with the question, this may seem quixotic, it is understandable that for those who feel their core belief system is under assault--i.e., those who entertain the paranoia to which i've referred--this is a religious issue. The first two posts of this thread read:
Quote:What makes Evolution so believable. Just because a bunch of scientists tell you it is. It is a theory, an idea, a guess. Why?
Quote:I seem to find a lot more truth from the Bible and not what a bunch of scientists tell me. come on seriously how believable is all the "scientific" stuff they say is right. a monkey turning in to a man? A big bang and the world was formed? How did the stuff that collided get formed?
Obviously, this in a character of a stochastic criticism of a theory of evolution--that it is conjecture, and conjecture only. It is not, however, unreasonable to suggest that a great many genuine practitioners of science would be willing to so stipulate. On such a basis, the religiously devout who indulge the paranoia about an atheistic subtext to a theory of evolution therefore retort that their conjecture, their preferred dogmatic canon, has as much validity, or that it makes better sense than evolutionary biology.
Additionally, despite sneers from the religiously devout that those who accept a theory of evolution as the most plausible explanation for the diversity of forms of life want to consider themselves the superior being in the universe, it is in fact just such a contention which often motivates their scorn and disgust with the notion that man and the great apes share a common ancestor. It is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. In the King James Version, Genesis, chapter 1, verse 26, reads:
Quote: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.
So in fact, for many devout Christians, they are themselves "the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals," and all plant and animal life is inferior to them, God having granted to them dominion over all other life. It is a deep affront to them to be characterized as a cousin to a chimpanzee, because they believe
themselves to be the superior being of the universe, saving only the God who created them.
To read the 316 pages of this thread would be to find the same arguments advanced again and again by each side in the dispute, and to see those arguments treated with incredulity and scorn by each side in the dispute. Those who consider a theory of evolution to be the most plausible explanation for the diversity of forms of life on this planet are not likely to be convinced by appeals to religious orthodoxy. Those who consider their preferred religious canon to be the repository of all truth are not likely to be convinced by a contention of the superiority of scientific materialism as an explanation for observable phenomena. So i submit that such a discussion as this is an exercise in futility.
