Why do Christians Scowl at Evolution?

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Why do Christians scowl at evolution when it is indeed a fact and has genetic data, and physical evidence while a 2000 year old religion based on fairytails has none and only faith? Why do Christians get angry at the mention of science especially evolution even though its out there and has physical evidence with documented data and right in their face but yet they hate it because its supposedly against the bible? Let me tell you this mutations occur and most arent always beneficial but once in a while they are and a different species or strain comes to be! If evolution did not exist bactieria would only stay as one strain and not evolve or mutate or adapt when we obviously know they do same with viruses! DNA angers bible thumpers alot!

I would guess most Xtians don't even care about evolution.

Only American-Style Evangelicals.

Christians (and Moslems) likely don't like evolution because it contradicts their creation myths. Which shows that a god didn't create life and it also shows that man is just another animal, nothing special or apart from other mammals.

Some religious people are (somehow) able to reconcile evolution with their faith, but for others the truth is too much for them to bear, so they either pretend evolution isn't true or pretend it is only some whimsical theory with no foundation in fact. In other words they stick their fingers in their ears and say La La La I can't hear you.

Personally, I'll take the truth every time over convenient or pleasant fantasies.

Not to mention their if humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys argument let alone the failed idea that we we use carbon 14 to date fossils to determine how old fossils are when we use other methods like potassium argon that definitely show the actual age of the rock?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ELEUT8Domg[/youtube]

Looking a little more deeply; I can see why some Christians / Moslems have deep problems with evolution. If someone has built up their life philosophy around the idea that a caring god created Adam and Eve etc etc and their religious beliefs give them a sense of purpose with their life and the hope that they will go to some sort of heaven when they die; such people are going to be very reluctant to accept anything that contradicts that. For many religious people it would turn their world upside down if they were to acknowledge the fact of evolution. Not only is evolution a wedge forcing them from their faith, it is a very big wedge. It may make them question other aspects of their religion and their whole world view could come tumbling down.

Consequently people with a really heavily emotional investment in religion will say or do anything rather than face the facts of evolution. They either knowingly or subconsciously turn a blind eye towards it and either ignore it pretending evolution doesn't exist or they attempt to refute it (very badly). I've heard some terrible arguments in support of creationism over evolution and every single argument I've ever come across has been shot down in flames. Evolution is a fact, whether they choose to accept it or not.

Given how important faith and Christianity / Islam is to some people, it is not surprising that they will refuse to accept evolution; it is too contradictory to their world view. They prefer to live with the lie/myth of creationism rather than accept the facts of evolution. Accepting evolution may break their hold on sanity if religion is a big crutch in their life - they can't handle the scientists amongst us coming along and knocking that crutch out from under them.

It is like I've mentioned before; when I was a university student many years ago, there was a group of Muslim students and they were forbidden by their beliefs from attending the classes on evolution and evolutionary biology! In this way they don't even have to face the dilemma of evolution vs creationism - they deliberately don't learn about that which is contrary to their faith!

We all have illogical belief systems that we use to make sense of the world, whether it's religion or social contract philosophies. We reject evidence because we fear the consequences of reality, and we justify our views through confirmation bias.

We can look at Christians and criticize them for rejecting the science of evolution, but we're no better. And if we scoff at ideas that oppose our own fantasies, we lose the opportunity to learn.

First I was all like "Verdammt! It's fairy tale! !!111oneone".

Then I noticed this... and the fact that your an Otaku....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_Tail

Are you pulling a "Trolling Is A Art" on us?

Here's my 2 cents:

Earlier in humanity, humans were dumb. We still are, just less dumb.

I think much of the first book is metaphorical, written in terms that would make some sense to uneducated man.

I think "7 days" refer to "7 periods of creation or 7 milestones"

Dumb? I don't think so. Earlier in humanity the (evolutionarily modern) humans were quite possibly smarter than us.* They just had far less accumulated knowledge. We stand on the shoulders of giants. They are the ones who figured out how to harness fire, make a spear with combined spearhead and other technological feats that we just take for granted but they invented. They also invented some truly insightful creation myths.

Taken as metaphor, the Garden of Eden creation story dovetails elegantly with the observations of evolution. It is staggeringly insightful. If you take it as metaphor, eating from the Tree of Knowledge really is what got us cast out from the Garden of Eden and really is what makes childbirth painful for women, just like the story says. Painful childbirth is a direct consequence of giant baby heads to hold giant baby brains coupled with small pelvises to make walking upright possible. Before we got so smart with giant brains and the ability to walk upright, childbirth would have been much easier (as it observably is for other primates). It got hard when we ate from the Tree of Knowledge- got smarter.

Getting smarter also got us kicked out of Eden. Once you have the abstract intelligence to conceptualize death and its' ramifications, you aren't in Eden anymore. You now are smart enough to worry, fret and agonize over the future and your own future death and the death of people you love. Looked at that way, the story is very insightful.

For that matter, isn't "And God said, 'Let there be light'" a good parallel to the Big Bang?

I am not familiar with the creation stories of other cultures, but I expect they also have nuggets of profound insight.

*They had superior food sources, although less of them. They also didn't have exposure to the enviromental toxins that dull a brain that we do, such as lead and other heavy metals. They had exposure to infectious disease, but probably not all that much back in the beginning, since it was civilization that really got our modern diseases going.

To AspieOtaku,

What you are describing is mainly the viewpoint of Young Earth Creationists. It's a common 'stereotype' that secular people have of Christians, one that gets tossed around a lot but rarely checked to make sure it's correct.

In reality, there are many Christians that have no issues with evolution, but primarily with the smugness that secularists exude when assuming anything about Christians, particularly the quick assumption that many Christians are dumb and anti-intellectual. Thus ignoring the great dearth of knowledge of science that exists among their general fellows, who while they might spout that their 'acceptance' of evolution makes them 'intellectually superior,' they often have only a general idea of what it entails.

As a Christian who understands evolution better then many secularists, Robert T. Bakker is a Christian Paleontologist, and who conceived the idea that birds could have evolved from theropod dinosaurs. At the time it was presented, it was considered a crazy idea. Now it is accepted.

I would say that before a person puffs their chest simply because they have accepted a few ideas that are popular, that they make sure that their accusation is true and can be verified. Otherwise it comes off as a platform for thinly disguised 'Christians are dumb, atheists are smart" chest thumping, and only serves to graphically highlight the prejudice that it actually is.

There is a specific point of Christian theology that causes the problem with evolution.

Not that christians are the only faith with adherents who dont like Darwin.


Othodox Jews consider evolution to be poppycock though they havent yet created a whole visible industry out of evolution denial like Protestant evangelicals have. And in advanced Muslim countries, like Turkey, they are now arriving at the stage that we were at during the monkey trials in the 1920's and starting to get upset about this evolution stuff as well ( in most of the muslim world theyre where we were at during the Reformation of the 16th Centurey and are too busy fighting sectarian wars to get around to thinking about the subject).

Hindu scripture says the world goes through 4.32 billion year cycles of rebirth- so evolution sorta fits right in that timescale. So they dont have much of a problem with it. Buddhism considers all creation myths to be irrelevent to salvation so they dont care either.

But for Christians there is a specific point of theology that is a problem, and that is the very central tenet of christianity: Original Sin.

Its not JUST that the Bible says the world was created in 4000 BC, but that a little while after that it says that death itsself was invented. Invented because adam and eve disobeyed God, ate the apple, and got kicked out of the Garden- and then became mortals. So its all one package- Mankind fell, we became mortal, then christ came to give us back immortatlity and salvation and restore everything to the pre apple stage.

So if the world existed prior to Adam and Eve, and plants and animals lived and died for millions of years before the fall then death existed prior to the biting of the apple. That means the original sin/redemption package gets all messed up.

But obviously some christians have found a way around it, and it seems to me that it should have been obvious even to the ancients that the story was written as a metaphor, and not to be taken literally.

But while American Protestant Evangelicals are waging holy war against darwin on one hand- the Eastern Orthodox Churches never had much of an attitude about Darwin. A greek gf showed me an essay by an orthodox patriarch that took a rather Buddhist-like stance saying in effect that the eastern rite churches are about saving souls and not about dictating the contents of geology textbooks -so they always considered Darwin to be a nonsequitar.

They call this 'Biblical Literalism." This is another subset type belief found among Christians, not generally a faith-wide belief.

Most of the ideas on here about Christianity are generally from the Bible Literalist, Young earth Creationist, King James Only subgroup that is the loudest vocal minority.

For the record, I fancy myself a Christian, and I see evolution as proof of God's glory.
And unfortunately, it's not just evangelicals who are down on evolution - I attend a Lutheran church, and I see people who attend my church who believe Darwin was full of it. Thankfully, Lutherans and other mainline denominations aren't nearly as vocal about evolution as the theological right of Christianity.

I am a Christian and I have no problem with evolution. "Truth cannot contradict truth."

Same here. I just wish they sought to genuinely ask us, instead of into an eager bashfest before the thread even gets a few hours old.