A.I. proves God exists...

[exchemist]

Are those polls wrong then?

I am not disputing any poll. But here I think what I said in post 130 is relevant:

"And this I think is a key point. Those of us who have thought about how evolution works and could answer her question are probably a minority, not because so many people are stupid, but because many people simply have had no reason to to think it through as we have. That lays them open to unscrupulous god-men who teach them that Palin’s question is a killer blow for “evolutionists”, when it is nothing of the kind."

This poll does not tell you what the doctrinal position of the various religions is towards evolution, or towards science more generally. It just tells you what people in US congregations, most of whom have barely opened a science textbook in their lives, say in response to a poll questionnaire. If the same questionnaire had asked a question about fossils, or whether dinosaurs were real and when they lived, I expect these same people would say yes they were real and were animals that lived long ago and died out. That of course is in conflict with biblical literalism since according to that death only entered the world with the sin of Adam and Eve. So "Go figure" as they say in the States!

It is common in polls to find people give answers to different questions that are mutually incompatible. People simply do not think these things through because until a questionniare comes along they have had no reason to do so.

As far as the teaching of various religions goes, well over half of Christianity, a good proportion of Judaism and all Buddhism do not have a problem with the science of evolution. Now, it may not come up much: I have yet to hear a sermon in church about evolution. But then it is not the church's job to teach science. However I have heard sermons pointing out that the Genesis accounts are allegorical rather than literal.

Sarkus has provided a link on the Christian (Catholic) position, Catholicism being just over half of all Christianity worldwide. Further reading on Judaism and Buddhism is here:

Jewish views on evolution - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Buddhist views on evolution - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So sweeping statements that "religion" and "evolution" - as ideas - are in conflict are incorrect.

 

[Pinball1970]

@Sarkus has provided a link on the Christian (Catholic) position, Catholicism being just over half of all Christianity

I don't need the link, we were taught Evolution in the 1980s, a Catholic school so I know what the position is.
40% of America think Adam and Eve were real, so presumably they are Protestant.

 

[foghorn]

Evolution clashes with religion in a big way .

Yes, in the way that religious evolution relies on an intelligent creator to start life. This is some Pope in Sarkus's link

[God] created beings and allowed them to develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one, so that they were able to develop and to arrive at their fullness of being.He gave autonomy to the beings of the universe at the same time at which he assured them of his continuous presence..........
.............The evolution of nature does not contrast with the notion of creation, as evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve

 

[gmilam]

From the website for the Southern Baptist Convention:

General Information:

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a fellowship of nearly 47,000 Baptist churches scattered across the United States and its territories.

This count does not include the more extreme "Independent", "Bible Baptist" and "Fundamentalist" flavors of the denomination.

Scripture

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.

The more extreme flavors tend to add the word "inerrant" in there.

God

He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe.

No wishy washy "God is Love" sentiment.

Man

Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation. In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race.

Translation: Genesis is true - evolution is nonsense

End of time

God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.

Translation: No need to worry about climate change because it has to occur for Jesus to come back

 

[exchemist]

From the website for the Southern Baptist Convention:

General Information:

This count does not include the more extreme "Independent", "Bible Baptist" and "Fundamentalist" flavors of the denomination.

Scripture

The more extreme flavors tend to add the word "inerrant" in there.

God

No wishy washy "God is Love" sentiment.

Man

Translation: Genesis is true - evolution is nonsense

End of time

Translation: No need to worry about climate change because it has to occur for Jesus to come back

Actually “special creation” does not necessarily mean evolution is nonsense, though I agree it may well do where the Southern Baptists’ Convention is concerned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_creation

 

[Pinball1970]

Translation: No need to worry about climate change because it has to occur for Jesus to come back

It certainly stacks up. It is whether the subject matter matters to people, the numbers involved and the power these people have in terms of policy making.

exchemist has made (one) point about whether science really matters to anyone but STEM guys, fair enough. Does anyone really care if the (observable) universe is 13.8 billion years old? Is that going to save lives, bring down inflation, get people back in work? No but it's nice to have an informed society right? A society on board with scientific may also be trusting of climate change data, vaccine technology?

 

[Pinball1970]

Actually “special creation” does not necessarily mean evolution is nonsense

No but it does mean it is special, with mankind in mind? I think it is a good idea to teach children about the universe, our galaxy, solar system and earth which we happen to have evolved on. Not that the universe was created for us, that supremacism thing again, a little humility is a good thing right?

 

[exchemist]

No but it does mean it is special, with mankind in mind? I think it is a good idea to teach children about the universe, our galaxy, solar system and earth which we happen to have evolved on. Not that the universe was created for us, that supremacism thing again, a little humility is a good thing right?

Well “special creation” can refer to the idea of infusion of the soul in Man, uniquely. So the soul, the immaterial, immortal, spiritual component of Man is said to be a specially created thing, over and above the evolutionary mechanics of the body. That is its meaning in Catholic theology at least. But I have no idea what Southern Baptists mean by it. I suspect they do indeed take it to mean that Man was specially created as opposed to evolving, as that would fit the general fundie vibe of these people.

Of course we should teach humility rather than supremacy and this is indeed what comes across in Catholic Sunday sermons nowadays, especially regarding stewardship of the planet and environment.( A lot just recently, due to the heat waves this summer.)

One has to keep in mind that one big difference between these Baptists and, say, Catholic or Anglican Christianity is the far greater prominence in Baptist teaching of the Old Testament. The Genesis stories only come up once or twice a year in most Catholic or Anglican worship, by tradition around Christmas and Easter. The rest of the time the emphasis is on the teaching of Christ, i.e. the New Testament. Another big difference is the Protestant sola scriptura ethos, which tends to discourage the development of further theological concepts beyond the actual words of the bible. By contrast in the older branches, the bishops of the church, who are regarded as spiritual descendants of the Apostles through their ordination, have authority to teach and can develop further ideas to elucidate the meaning of the bible in various directions. This provides a certain degree of flexibility in interpretation.

One really should not base one’s picture of Christianity on the US Southern Baptists.

 

[gmilam]

One really should not base one’s picture of Christianity on the US Southern Baptists.

It's not the Christianity I was raised with. We were Methodists. Our church was much more open minded. I would almost be tempted to use the no true Scotsman fallacy when discussing the Baptist beliefs. But they think they are Christian. And it seems to be the primary school of thought among the religious people I know. At the very least it's the most vocal.

However, we are starting to see a rise in the religious left here in Texas. Hope springs eternal.

 

[exchemist]

It's not the Christianity I was raised with. We were Methodists. Our church was much more open minded. I would almost be tempted to use the no true Scotsman fallacy when discussing the Baptist beliefs. But they think they are Christian. And it seems to be the primary school of thought among the religious people I know. At the very least it's the most vocal.

However, we are starting to see a rise in the religious left here in Texas. Hope springs eternal.

Haha, the joke is it tends to be they who deploy the No True Scotsman gambit: if you aren’t born again according to their way of doing things, you aren’t really a proper Christian, etc. But in truth they only account for a couple of percent of Christianity at most. But they are vocal and very politically active it seems.

 

[gmilam]

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist organization, the largest Protestant, and the second-largest Christian body in the United States.

 

[exchemist]

That's quite interesting. The Southern Baptists seem to have had their fair share of internal struggles between moderates and fundies. Not a homogeneous group, evidently.

There seem to be ~12 million of them. For comparison there are ~ 2.7 billion Christians worldwide.

 

[exchemist]

It's not the Christianity I was raised with. We were Methodists. Our church was much more open minded. I would almost be tempted to use the no true Scotsman fallacy when discussing the Baptist beliefs. But they think they are Christian. And it seems to be the primary school of thought among the religious people I know. At the very least it's the most vocal.

However, we are starting to see a rise in the religious left here in Texas. Hope springs eternal.

My paternal grandfather was a Methodist minister, though on his return from China he seemed to be allowed to practice as a minister in the Church of Scotland (perhaps not that many Methodists where he lived in the west of Scotland - he was a prof at Glasgow University). But my father converted to Catholicism after reading history at uni, so we were brought up Catholic.

 

[Sarkus]

I don't need the link, we were taught Evolution in the 1980s, a Catholic school so I know what the position is.

The Catholic position on evolution has changed since you went to school, though. The official position back then was that it was just a hypothesis, and okay for Catholics to be taught it as such. In the 90s it was finally accepted by the Catholic church as more than hypothesis, due to overwhelming evidence, to the point that today it is considered to be indisputable fact, and yet still compatible with Catholic doctrine.

If your school in the 80s was teaching you evolution as being more than merely hypothesis, this was not the official line of the Catholic church. I went to a catholic school in the 80s, run by monks (mostly lay teachers, though), but we were taught evolution as fact. Even back then. The religious side of the school's teachings taught us the Catholic position as it was at the time, and they acknowledged the apparent contradictions, with explanations tending toward what is now the official line. Despite what was the official Catholic line back then, they didn't dictate what we could be taught in science classes. So just because one was taught evolution in a catholic school doesn't mean one therefore knew what the official Catholic position was, either then or now.

40% of America think Adam and Eve were real, so presumably they are Protestant.

Not necessarily.
There was a study in 2025 specifically of clergy. One question asked was whether they believe that Adam and Eve existed. Catholic clergy was 23%, even if the official line accepted evolution. And one would expect their parish to follow broadly in line with whatever their clergy believed, right?

 

[Pinball1970]

The Catholic position on evolution has changed since you went to school, though.

Ok.

The official position back then was that it was just a hypothesis, and okay for Catholics to be taught it as such.

I'm racking my brains here. I am pretty certain we were taught BB Theory in Geography and possibly the Theory of Evolution too. It was not very good because I cannot remember a lot of details, if there was a lot of meat to it things would have stuck.

I distinctly remember them saying, "god allowed it to happen."

Evolution was not given the proper treatment till 6th form which was 1983-85.
All the technical parts of theory were explained as they would have featured in final exams. That was a Catholic college, again I do not know how that was framed, I think notes were given on the theory with examples just like ecdysis in my entomology lessons. Matter of fact (ha ha!...)

So just because one was taught evolution in a catholic school doesn't mean one therefore knew what the official Catholic position was, either then or now.

Ok fair enough. Our school was pretty big on the religion part, our deputy head said our soul was more important than our education, 3rd year so I would have been 14.

1984 Our head (who was a brother) said the same thing in an assembly. Everyone looked at each other, "Why the fuck are we busting our ass doing 3-4 hours a night trying to get into Uni? Why don't we just quit and go to church every day?"

At least we could call bullshit by this point. Anyway a little off piste, they were decent schools I can't complain overall.

And one would expect their parish to follow broadly in line with whatever their clergy believed, right

As pope I would want my guys to spread the word, they did regarding contraception (mass in the 70s/80s)
If they are not conveying that to the parish and /or not convincing them, then they are not doing a good job right?
What is the point of a priest otherwise? Spread the word whatever that is?

 

[exchemist]

The Catholic position on evolution has changed since you went to school, though. The official position back then was that it was just a hypothesis, and okay for Catholics to be taught it as such. In the 90s it was finally accepted by the Catholic church as more than hypothesis, due to overwhelming evidence, to the point that today it is considered to be indisputable fact, and yet still compatible with Catholic doctrine.

If your school in the 80s was teaching you evolution as being more than merely hypothesis, this was not the official line of the Catholic church. I went to a catholic school in the 80s, run by monks (mostly lay teachers, though), but we were taught evolution as fact. Even back then. The religious side of the school's teachings taught us the Catholic position as it was at the time, and they acknowledged the apparent contradictions, with explanations tending toward what is now the official line. Despite what was the official Catholic line back then, they didn't dictate what we could be taught in science classes. So just because one was taught evolution in a catholic school doesn't mean one therefore knew what the official Catholic position was, either then or now.

Not necessarily.
There was a study in 2025 specifically of clergy. One question asked was whether they believe that Adam and Eve existed. Catholic clergy was 23%, even if the official line accepted evolution. And one would expect their parish to follow broadly in line with whatever their clergy believed, right?

Actually I think it is even more complicated. I think the official position is to accept evolution but to insist that there were two "first" human beings! This seems on the face of it ridiculous when one considers that evolution operates at the level of populations. There is no way the entire human race can be descended from two specific individuals. So in fact I think there is still some way to go before the theology fully catches up with the science.

I assume the reason for it is because they want to preserve the idea of a first "Original" Sin, committed by these two individuals. This is nuts in my view. I even recall our parish priest back in the 1960s telling us that "Original Sin" can be seen as the natural predisposition of humanity to do wrong in spite of having moral awareness. In other words a tendency, rather than a specific act by some hypothetical individual, back in the mists of time. So I really do not get why they are hung up on Adam and Eve.

But it's a detail: evolution is accepted. Believing there were a pair of "first" fully human beings, somewhere along the evolutionary continuum, does not call into question acceptance that Man evolved from the (other) apes.

 

[Pinball1970]

Actually I think it is even more complicated. I think the official position is to accept evolution but to insist that there were two "first" human beings! This seems on the face of it ridiculous when one considers that evolution operates at the level of populations. There is no way the entire human race can be descended from two specific individuals. So in fact I think there is still some way to go before the theology fully catches up with the science.

I assume the reason for it is because they want to preserve the idea of a first "Original" Sin, committed by these two individuals. This is nuts in my view. I even recall our parish priest back in the 1960s telling us that "Original Sin" can be seen as the natural predisposition of humanity to do wrong in spite of having moral awareness. In other words a tendency, rather than a specific act by some hypothetical individual, back in the mists of time. So I really do not get why they are hung up on Adam and Eve.

But it's a detail: evolution is accepted. Believing there were a pair of "first" fully human beings, somewhere along the evolutionary continuum, does not call into question acceptance that Man evolved from the (other) apes.

I have not kept track of all this as Sarkus as pointed out, that is conceded and the world's religions may have a more progressive view on Evolution and science education now.

There is a study on Islam that suggests this is happening there also, I'm skeptical but I'll dig it out.

I don't think any of that would have helped me in 1990, it would not have mattered by that point, I wanted convincing by evidence not opinion.
Just evidence it was real, nothing else.

 

[exchemist]

I have not kept track of all this as Sarkus as pointed out, that is conceded and the world's religions may have a more progressive view on Evolution and science education now.

There is a study on Islam that suggests this is happening there also, I'm skeptical but I'll dig it out.

I don't think any of that would have helped me in 1990, it would not have mattered by that point, I wanted convincing by evidence not opinion.
Just evidence it was real, nothing else.

Yes. My understanding is that there is a spectrum of views within Islam. Some even like to claim the Muslims were the first to articulate the the concept of evolution, in the writings of ibn Tufayl, ibn Khaldun and others, though this is rather a stretch, hem hem. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_evolution

Islam, like some forms of Christianity, suffers nowadays from fundies and zealots who are too narrow-minded to embrace some of the more imaginative ideas of their predecessors. And, as with Christianity, the fundies and zealots make the most noise and thereby warp the image of the religion to outsiders.

 

[gmilam]

It's easy to reconcile the Bible with science if you're willing to accept the Bible as allegory. But then, Jesus dying for an allegory isn't really very satisfying is it?

 

[Pinball1970]

You may be in the minority exchemist, a person who values what religion has to offer but is also pragmatic when it comes to claims, and history.

Are believers like this generally speaking? Valuing history, tradition, family and community over the soul and heaven?

Do people take the measured, reasoned, evidence based critical approach when confronted with a challenge to scripture?
Or do they: 1. Brush it under the carpet, best not think about it. 2. Rationalize it. 3. Decide the challenger is incorrect, be it history/archaeology or science?