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Question for Christians. Please answer seriously?

I personally believe that for someone to argue about something, they should know what they are arguing against.

So how many christians here against evolution know what evolution is?

Please explain in detail what you understand of evolution. How does it happen? (pretending it does happen).

I will award 10 points to the christian who can explain evolution most accurately.

And please also explain why you think it's false with reasoning.

No offense, but please don't state bible quotes.

Update:

Please focus on "how does it work?"

Update 2:

If you are neither, you shouldn't be answering this question.

Update 3:

Looks like david has the best explaination so far.

But My question was directed at christians. My purpose is to find out if christians know what they are arguing against.

So sorry, I can't give you the best answer.

Update 4:

Dylan, why don't you explain it?

Update 5:

It's not that I fear bible quotes.

I just prefer evidence.

I could just publish a book called 'The Bible returns'. Would people take everything written on it as proof just because it has the word 'bible' in its title?

20 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favourite answer

    Before I start: Yes i am a Christian.

    (1) The Theory of Evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the Big Bang people. That obviously is the Big Bang Theory, which people often couple with the Theory of Evolution to explain great amounts of time.

    (2) The Theory of Evolution does NOT say that we come from Monkeys/Apes/Gorillas or any other type of primate. It states that we share a common ancestor which our species deviated hundreds of millions of years ago to evolve into the species that we are today. Because of the common ancestor, today we still share almost 96% of the same DNA with Chimpanzee; the differences being that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes while Chimpanzees have 24 pairs. Somewhere down the line human chromosomes fused together to combine chromosomes which permanently shifted our pelvis in such a way that we would walk upright.

    Now as for the Theory of Evolution: Darwin's Theory of Evolution is actually very, very simple. Because there are limited resources on this planet, all species must compete within its own species and against others to survive. All of these species have variations in sizes, strengths, etc. Just as humans do today. The Theory goes that the animals with the variations that give the animal the best chance of survival will survive and pass those variations on and on. Eventually the spread of this variation will reach across the entire species.

    This is what Darwin's Original Theory of Evolution is, the modern day extremities of "evolution" is actually called Abiogenesis. Which literally means "the origin of life," is the study of how life began and uses Darwin's Theory of Evolution to explain how we came from single celled organisms into the homosapiens we are today.

    Hope that is good enough for you there. If you have anymore questions, let me know :-)

    I also saw that someone said that we do not have any fossil records of transitional species and there is no transitional species found today. As for fossils, we do not have any fossils that are labeled "transitional," however, we have quite a lot of fossils that we know belong to a certain species but can't quite figure out where they belong. We can't be certain whether this is a "transitional" fossil, or that it is simply a mutation in the current species, etc. There are many reasons however for the lack of overwhelming transitions. For one, fossils are extremely rare, many people think that when you die, your bones become fossils. This is absolutely not true! There are many conditions that must be met for a fossil to form over the course of time. Two, "transitional" fossils can't be found or labeled because "transitional" is a subjective term. We don't know what we are looking at when we see a fossil, all we can do is compare to the fossils that we already have. If one finds a raptor skeleton for example which happens to be must smaller than most, we don't know if this is a raptor who is just a small adult, or if it is the beginning of an evolutionary trait to evolve into smaller, lighter animals that will eventually become birds. We forget that the time involved for this stuff to happen is incredible! So we of course aren't going to see "transitional" fossils like that same Raptor with wings for arms. Doesn't happen like that.

    Also, because of the great time involved, we can definitely say that there are species alive today, in fact, all species today are in the process of evolving, it just takes so much time that we will never notice. Take a Walrus for example, is this an animal that God just created to live in water and on land? Is this a sea creature who is adapting and evolving to be ale to be on land? Is this a land creature who is evolving into a sea animal (unlikely)? We cannot say for sure because well anyones 50-100 years on this planet is enough to see absolutely nothing in the evolutionary time scales of 100,000,000s years for simple traits to be evident, let along major shifts in traits.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Evolution - The process of organisms developing by Natural Selection over a long period of time.

    What I believe is that animals can create new breeds within their own kind. Not completely new animals.

    The reason I don't believe in evolution is because it is only an idea. Not a fact. If it were a fact we would be able to see it. I can't see anything-animals and humans alike-where we are developing something new.

    As the scientific method states:

    The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments.

    In my opinion evolution hasn't been observed and therefore cannot be a scientific theory, which therefore cannot be a fact.

  • Evolution is the process in which it is believed that men slowly transitioned from an earlier life form (such as apes) and that other animals evolved from other animals, such as a dinosaur to a bird, etc.

    One reason to believe that evolution is not true is that nobody has found a transitional species (a.k.a. half bird/half dinosaur). Those that HAVE appeared over the years have been proven to be fake.

    Also, science has been able to prove in agreement with the Bible that the earth is only 6-7 thousand years old. The proof from the Bible is the genealogies.

    I am a devout evangelical Christian of 10 yrs.

    Source(s): I get most of my information on this issue from http://www.answersingenesis.org/ They are from a Christian perspective and they give great answers and proof to Creationism (vs. evolution).
  • 1 decade ago

    Evolution is a gradual process, by which something adapts and changes into different, and generally ''better'' form. Though most people tend to think of evolutionary theory as men descending from apes, it certainly is not limited to primates, or even to living beings.

    I am Christian, and I have no problems with evolutionary theory. The earliest known Christian commentaries (written in the early second century AD) on the Old Testament specifically dismiss a literal reading of the creation account in Genesis. Clement of Rome, Origen, Tertullian... multiple *exceedingly important* Ante-Nicene Church Fathers interpretted the story as allegory. Later, Augustine of Hippo even went so far as to say that interpretting the story literally was ''foolish.'' The Big Bang Theory was first devised by a Roman Catholic monk, and recieved the Pope's blessing in 1951.

  • 1 decade ago

    Well a simplified definition of evolution is a process of something changing over time. Darwinian evolution (or biological evolution) pertains to the changing of species over time through the genes, its a chemical and physical process that has to do mainly with the fields of biology, chemistry, and for a smaller extent psychology and the social sciences. It's refered to as "darwinian" evolution because Charles Darwin first proposed the idea of evolution by natural selection as a way of explaining the varieties of the species.

    Unfortunately the common definitions of evolution outside of the scientific community are different. For example, in the Oxford Concise Science Dictionary we find the following definition:

    "evolution: The gradual process by which the present diversity of plant and animal life arose from the earliest and most primitive organisms, which is believed to have been continuing for the past 3000 million years."

    This is inexcusable for a dictionary of science. Not only does this definition exclude prokaryotes, protozoa, and fungi, but it specifically includes a term "gradual process" which should not be part of the definition. More importantly the definition seems to refer more to the history of evolution than to evolution itself. Using this definition it is possible to debate whether evolution is still occurring, but the definition provides no easy way of distinguishing evolution from other processes. For example, is the increase in height among Caucasians over the past several hundred years an example of evolution? Are the color changes in the peppered moth population examples of evolution? This is not a scientific definition.

    Standard dictionaries are even worse.

    "evolution: ...the doctrine according to which higher forms of life have gradually arisen out of lower.." - Chambers

    "evolution: ...the development of a species, organism, or organ from its original or primitive state to its present or specialized state; phylogeny or ontogeny" - Webster's

    These definitions are simply wrong. Unfortunately it is common for non-scientists to enter into a discussion about evolution with such a definition in mind. This often leads to fruitless debate since the experts are thinking about evolution from a different perspective. When someone claims that they don't believe in evolution they cannot be referring to an acceptable scientific definition of evolution because that would be denying something which is easy to demonstrate. It would be like saying that they don't believe in gravity!

    Recently I read an article about a creationist who claimed that scientists are being dishonest when they talk about evolution. This person believed that evolution was being misrepresented to the public. The real problem is that the public, and creationists, do not understand what evolution is all about. This person's definition of evolution was very different from the common scientific definition and as a consequence he was unable to understand what evolutionary biology really meant. This is the same person who claimed that one could not "believe" in evolution and still be religious! But once we realize that evolution is simply "a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations" it seems a little silly to pretend that this excludes religion!

    Science needs to work harder to convey the correct information. Sometimes they don't succeed very well but that does not mean that they are dishonest. On the other hand, the general public, and creationists in particular, need to also work a little harder in order to understand science. Reading a textbook would help.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    The Big Bang

    Energy comes from nowhere (which destroys the principal of conservation of energy) and an explosion of heat and matter explodes out, creating space consisting mainly of Hydrogen.

    Accretion

    Matter falls into clumps because of gravity, over a number of million years. The gravity in the clumps of matter creates kinetic energy and therefore creates heat. The heat creates a combustion and star life begins. The big bang creates the motion of the spiraling galaxies and the expansion of the universe.

    Evolution

    Life forms from little bits of bacteria and sunlight, and eventually things start growing parts so that they can move and adapt to their environment. They learn to swim etc and evolve into larger creatures over a huge period of time. Many die off because they can't adapt to their environment effectively. ie survival of the fittest or natural selection.

    Source(s): Educated Christian
  • 1 decade ago

    Organic evolution is the theory that the first living organism developed from lifeless matter. Then, as it reproduced, it is said, it changed into different kinds of living things, ultimately producing all forms of plant and animal life that have ever existed on this earth. All of this is said to have been accomplished without the supernatural intervention of a Creator. Some persons endeavor to blend belief in God with evolution, saying that God created by means of evolution, that he brought into existence the first primitive life forms and that then higher life forms, including man, were produced by means of evolution.

  • 1 decade ago

    I have heard that the earth is over a billion years old

    and recently heard a group talking about human remains

    found in Africa probably 3 million years old.

    I don't think biblical stories that go back 5 to 7 thousand years

    explain the beginning of mankind very well

  • in an evolutionary nutshell,..pretend it does happen,..evolutionary mind psyche,..

    there was nothing, then a rock then a man and then according to evolution all will go back to a rock,..and this all happened over billions of years,..so that would mean my strawberry jam could evolve into.......................?

    no offense, but it is good you fear the bible quotes,..

    i would also ask how science can explain finding petrified trees going up through all the layers of sediment in their sedimentary chart of billions of years of evolution and one of these trees is upside down,..

    please hav science properly calibrate their time measuring equipment,..for the earth was created before the stars, neighbor,..

    did God create man or did man create god,..we are all here on purpose, and you hav found yorz,..braaavo,..

    find my hypobaric chamber posts, neighbor,..and locate yor dinosaur,..

    i e a e,..

    avatar of the unification,..

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    I've heard a few variations, but the gist I've gotten is:

    Billions of years ago smalls particles were drawn into each other, spinning quickly. Bits flew off and gradually formed into the planets, and it exploded and created all matter in the universe, or something like that.

    Earth started as a boiling hot mass of rock, with steam coming off that eventually formed clouds, gave rain and turned into a bio-soup. Some slime came out and that gradually evolved into everything we know now, or so I've heard...this is really vague but I'm doing my best off the top of my head.

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