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Does the bible actually teach evolution?

Cainkane1

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Cainkane1
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http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/interp/evolution.html

Does the Bible teach evolution?
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree. -- Genesis 1:11
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. -- Genesis 1:24

Notice that God lets "the earth bring forth" the plants and animals, rather than create them directly. So maybe the creationists have it all wrong. Maybe Genesis is not so anti-evolution after all.
 
Cainkane1 said:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/interp/evolution.html

Does the Bible teach evolution?
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree. -- Genesis 1:11
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. -- Genesis 1:24

Notice that God lets "the earth bring forth" the plants and animals, rather than create them directly. So maybe the creationists have it all wrong. Maybe Genesis is not so anti-evolution after all.
Click to expand...

No.

The bible does not teach evolution.
 
bikerdruid said:
care to tell us why?
your post certainly blocks the flow of discussion.:(
Click to expand...

Well, I was not trying to block discussion, instead I was asked a question and I gave the best answer that I could.

But as for your question: yes, I can tell you why the bible does not teach evolution.

The reason is because the bible does not teach evolution.

Come to think of it, ...

my cook books do not teach evolution,
my aviation books do not teach evolution,
my civil engineering books do not teach evolution,
my archery books do not teach evolution,
my James Bond books do not teach evolution,
my ... (well, you get the point).

However, I do have a few books by Richard Dawkins (and others) that do teach evolution.
 
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Crossbow said:
Well, I was not trying to block discussion, instead I was asked a question and I gave the best answer that I could.

But as for your question: yes, I can tell you why the bible does not teach evolution.

The reason is because the bible does not teach evolution.

Come to think of it, ...

my cook books do not teach evolution,
my aviation books do not teach evolution,
my civil engineering books do not teach evolution,
my archery books do not teach evolution,
my James Bond books do not teach evolution,
my ... (well, you get the point).

However, I do a few books by Richard Dawkins (and others) that do teach evolution.
Click to expand...
It actually does seem to teach a form of abiogenesis.
 
Cainkane1 said:
It actually does seem to teach a form of abiogenesis.
Click to expand...

Abiogenesis is nothing to do with evolution
:rolleyes:
if I had a dollar........
bikerdruid said:
care to tell us why?
your post certainly blocks the flow of discussion.:(
Click to expand...
The bible teaches that everything was created by God exactly as it is now (with one exception), so theres been no change, so therefore it doesn't teach evolution.

death of thread
:p
 
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bikerdruid said:
really?? i didn't know richard dawkins was a teacher of evolution.
which books?
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specifically :-
The Selfish Gene 1976 - gene centred view of evolution
Editorial advisor 2006 - the Encyclopedia of Evolution
Climbing Mount Improbable 1996 - probability and evolution
The Extended Phenotype 1982 - Ethology and natural selection
The Blind Watchmaker 1986 - gene centred view of evolution
River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life 1995 - Darwinian evolution
The Ancestor's Tale 2004 - Human evolution
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution 2009 - Biological evolution

and non specifically in all his works evolution is a central theme, hes also made a number of TV programs about evolution
;)
Like, how did you miss that, had your eyes shut ?
:D
 
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It's an interesting question, CK1.

I would tend to say no, the bible does not teach us any specific knowledge about evolution.

However you choose to interpret it, genesis is a piece of poetry. It attempts to explain how the earth came into being in an attractive and easy to understand manner.

While you could say that it is describing an evolutionary process, that is only because it is so vauge as to leave room for subjective interpretation. It is that same vaugness that makes it powerless to impart any real knowledge about the mechanics of the story. Whehter it was through evolution or creation, Genesis tells us nothing about how things were made.

As an aside, i would thingk most people that believe in Judeo Christian religions would strongly disagree with that particular interpretation of Genesis.

Regards, Canis
 
bikerdruid said:
care to tell us why?
your post certainly blocks the flow of discussion.:(
Click to expand...

1.) The word evolution does not appear in the text.
2.) A description of adaptation through mutation and natural selection does not appear in the text.
3.) An accurate accounting of animal taxonimy does not exist in the bible (e.g., bats aren't birds)
4.) For the longest time, people thought that life arose spontaneously (spontaneous generation) all the time. This was believed to be consistent with the biblical teachings and such a spontaneous occurrence would completely negate the concept of evolution (how can a species evolve if life occurred by magic with out trait propogation?) It wasn't until Pastuer did his swan neck experiments that this idea was considered wrong. The lesson here is, If the text of the bible is so vague as to be interpreted to support a notion so contradictory to evolution, it is ludicrous to claim it teaches evolution.
5.) The text of the bible makes no mention of DNA, cellular structures, germ theory, RNA,...
 
I don't think it even teaches abiogenesis. Saying "god did it" is not teaching much of anything. Where it would really get interesting is if it said HOW god did it or the underlying philosophy of WHY he did it, etc.

As has been pointed out it is totally silent on the subject of evolution. If it was going to talk about it, I would hope that god would have provided as much detail as Dr. Dawkins has in his books on the evolution.
 
Cainkane1 said:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/interp/evolution.html

Does the Bible teach evolution?
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree. -- Genesis 1:11
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. -- Genesis 1:24

Notice that God lets "the earth bring forth" the plants and animals, rather than create them directly. So maybe the creationists have it all wrong. Maybe Genesis is not so anti-evolution after all.
Click to expand...

what does after his kind mean for you? To me that sounds very anti evolutionary :)
 
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