I'm a Christian, and in school we are learning about evolution. Help?

Question

Okay, I don't believe in evolution. It's making me mad that I have to learn about something I don't even believe in. But, it is making me kinda confused. Did cave men exist? Don't they have proof? Then what happened to Adam and Eve, they weren't cave ppl were they? I'm sooo confused, can someone clear this up?

Answer 1

You have a very valid point. They do have proof that there were an earlier peoples in existence. There really aren't any photographs of Adam and Eve if you see what I am saying, but that doesn't bash any religious or scientific statements made explaning the development of mankind. Which in my head, I just wanted to put this out there, no one really knows what Adam and Eve looked like. Plus, do we really know what God was thinking when he made man in his own view. He could have designed something such as evolution in the long run. That could be his big, master plan, to watch mankind better themselves as their environment changes.

You are very bright and I can see that you are a thinker, my friend! You ask questions and in all honesty, I don't believe in the word evolution. I believe in adaptation.

:)

Answer 2

creation is based on the bible, evolution is based on science and that is why they teach it. not saying believing in creationism is wrong, because that's your personal choice but they teach evolution because there is the scientific evidence to back it up and since they teach science in school, evolution is a natural topic to choose. they have fossilized remains of the cavemen.

adam and eve were not cavemen, in fact according to the bible, cavemen didn't exist. the bible states we're all descendents of adam and eve. but scientific evidence shows us evolving from cavemen into the human race we are today.

but you believe, what you believe. all you have to do is know the right answers for the tests, you don't have to believe it!

edit. i totally agree with the answer above. i do believe they can co-exist. i believe in a God that guided evolution.

Answer 3

Firstly, there is no 'believing' in evolution, because it is not a belief system. It is a scientific theory with boatloads of physical evidence. Therefore you can't 'believe' in it; you can however 'accept' it.

No wonder you're confused though

You can't take a literal view of the bible and try and understand evolution at the same time. It just doesn't work.

It is however perfectly possible to take a figurative view of the bible and accept evolution. Many Christians do. In the UK, this whole concept of 'creationism' (that the stories in the bible are literal facts) is pretty foreign.

Most people look at the stories as being apocryphal, i.e, they're not true stories, they are simply demonstrations if you like, of morals etc.

As for the story of creation, it is a typical creation story; thousands of years ago they didn't know how the world was created, so they came up with plausible explanations based on their belief system. It's actually not a terribly bad one for it's day (space and seas and land and stuff mostly in the right order) but in order to understand evolution, you need to see it in context, as something that was written a long time ago to explain something that people then didn't fully understand.

Now we do.

Now we can explain more than just 'the heavens and earth were created, and the seas, and the animals and man...'. Now we can explain how the universe was created, and how the earth began, and make good guesses at how life started, and evolution explains how tiny singular cell organasims developed and changed and changed again over billions of years until you get to where we are now.

You'll have to decide what you'd rather accept; the literal view of a story which has no evidence to suggest it is complete fact, or scientific evidence. It doesn't mean you have to deny the bible or anything like that. As I said, plenty of Christians accept evolution. Being a Christian and denying evolution does not go hand in hand.

Answer 4

u know what just believe what u want to believe and nothing else.. school has to teacher that cuz they cant just teach one thing and not the other ...

Answer 5

no one can make you change your beliefs, just like you cant force your beliefs on anyone else. Thats why there making you learn about evolution, because for some reason some people think that that is how man got here. The sad thing is that they won't also teach the lesson of creation in school. the only thing i can tell you to do is to just go with the program even though you dont believe in it and keep your faith until the system changes.

Answer 6

Try this on.

Evolution is evidence of a continuing creation. A living creator would not be satisfied with his first try, and he would continue tinkering with things until he was satisfied. Apparently that condition has no yet been met, since evolution continues.

Were there cave men?

Yes.

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcna...

And they were excellent artists.

Adam and Eve were a story that the ancient Jews told each other to explain to themselves where they came from.

If you look around, you will find that many ancient cultures have similar creation myths. They have similarities, they have differences.

Once you are free of your captors, you can look around and learn that what you call The Bible is a collection of stories, songs, poems, laws, sanitation rules, myths, etc. written by several different people in numerous languages over a long period of time, usually decades after the events have happened.  They were handed down from generation to generation orally because reading and writing were not common skills. When all of those were actually written down, the collection went through Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin before being translated into English.

I don't know if you have ever played a game called "Party line" or "Telephone." a large group of people sit in a circle. One person starts by whispering a sentence in the next person's ear. He repeats it to the next person, whispering. By the time it goes completely around the circle, everything in the sentence has changed.

Imagine that sentence changed into a story, and it travels from person to person over a period of 5 or 6,000 years, through several languages, across continents.

That is what they are telling you is the Word of God.

Answer 7

I'm a christian and I believe in evolution, who is to say that it wasn't the divine that started the evolution process, you see science and religion can often go hand in hand with each other  

Answer 8

The big bang theory and the theory of evolution controls science in school, but for history and literature, schools don't have a choice but to use the Bible. The Bible is a main reference used by historians to learn about early A.D. And no one, not even an atheist, can argue that the Bible is not significant to world history and a literature masterpiece.  

Answer 9

My science proffessor in college taught evolution in accordance with the syllabus. However, later in graduate school I was able to ask him a question in regard to it. I knew at that time that he was a Christian. I felt conflicts in regard to it. But of course I did it to obtain my grade in the course. Just because you study something does not mean that you agree with it wholeheartedly.

His answer to me was as follows: (not verbatim of course)

The study of science made me a stronger believer in my faith as a Christian. In studying science and seeing the wonders of science I have to believe that there is a higher power because all of these things cannot just happen out of chaos. How can you get order from chaos there has to be some intervention for it to occur. Thus my rationale is that this intervention is from God.

(Note: this was a one on one conversation and not during classtime)

Now on to the caveman concept. When Adam and Eve where displaced from the Garden of Eden they have to find somewhere to live. They had to seek shelter in some place such as a cave (maybe). They had to find clothing which came from animal hides. They had to live of the land the best that they could. These are just my thoughts - I can not validate or anything in regard to that. This is my common sense approach to the correlation between the two. Evolution (a man's perspective) is the concept of man deriving a theory to explain why we are here. Creationism (divine perspective) is the believe that God placed us (all living things) here using the materials of the earth. If you look at both you will see many parallels that I pointed out above.

Answer 10

There were many different species of humans (homo-sapiens) here is a simple article to educate yourself.

I beleive in BOTH Adam and Eve AND evolution because the bible has a lot of good morals and I dont want to toss it out. But I use it not to shut myself down to reality, but as a porthole to understand reality better. And I think God wants us to embrace our world, not the opposite.

So here is the history of humans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolu...

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/...

Answer 11

throughout school i've learnt both, and that gave me the information i needed to decide for myself. you should believe what you believe but be open to the fact that other people believe evolution, its complicated as both wont fit together, in places it might but not everywhere. so if i were you i'd believe what i believe but be open and learn about evolution.

Answer 12

I'm a christian too and this is how I like to explain it...

- The Bible is not a scientific book( it doesn't tell you exact things)

(i.e god created the world in 6 days...maybe for god 6 days are millions of years he is eternal after all).

- So there is a way you can believe in both(I've met very good scientists that are very religious people)

-There are proofs for science; but there are proofs for god too(we are it)

Answer 13

The two are not incompatible.  I think that a higher power guides evolution. Evolution is fact. The story of Adam and Eve is just that a story.

A morality tale to instruct people about going against god's wishes, but it is not fact.

Answer 14

Someone, I must admire your honesty and I can quite understand your confusion in this terribly controversial subject.

When I was a Sunday School teacher I always suggested to my pupils that they keep a tiny corner of their brain "open" so that they could change their mind as they got older and found some of the Christian beliefs might be different than they had been taught as children.

May I just say that every University in the world (except Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell and the other evangelistic institutions) teach evolution to be proven and reject the religious notion that the architect of the universe (God) suddenly created full grown humans and other creatures (Creation Theory).

I am a retired doctor and I must admit I was surprised when I first was shown the vestigial remains of the "third eyelid"  which all humans have (look at that shrivelled fold of skin in the corner of your own eye.  That third eyelid can only mean that our ancestors required a third eyelid to live under water, many millions of years ago.

The proof we have of evolution is found in the many hundreds of fossils of early humans who could walk upright and whose bodies were much like ours except that they had not learned to talk at that time(and could not have had conversations with snakes in any garden) and whose brains were smaller than later humans.

Being a Christian simply means you believe that Jesus is the leader of the Christian church, ever since governor  Constantine declared Christianity the official religion in May, 325, at the Council of Nicea.

At the time of Christ, 97% of people were illiterate and certainly there was no knowledge of science or anthropology or biology.  

The most difficult thing I must say to you is that, although the Bible is the most important book ever written, every word is not to be interpreted as written.

World religious leaders all agree that the bible is a mixture of history, allegory and myth.  Many of the greatest allegories were written to demonstrate to the simple people 4000 years ago the difference between good and evil for example.  Thus the garden of Eden is such a wonderful example.  As is Noah and the Ark.

I'll just give you one tiny example :  The bible story says that man was created instantly and then a rib was taken from his body to create a woman.  Which would mean men have one less rib than women. But in medical school we all counted the ribs in the male and female skeleton and they are exactly the same number, 28 usually.  But I have seen female skeletons with 29 ribs, one more than a male but that was an exception.

So I ask you to be broad-minded and not make up your mind entirely as to what you believe.  As you mature, some things will become apparent to you.

I am sure you will remain a wonderfully kind and good person even though your beliefs change from time to time.

Thanks for letting me answer your interesting question.

Answer 15

Take the opportunity to learn REAL science. You need to separate religious dogma from factual science. Dinosaurs and cavemen DID exist. There is proof. Getting mad because you don't understand something, is a childish approach to education. Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it wrong. Facts are facts. To deny them is called "ignorance".