1 votes
Most Christians believe in Evolution
05 March 2012
One of the reasons I rarely take part in discussions about Christianity on this forum, is that Christians are always categorized as “people who reject Evolution”, and that’s it’s impossible to have a fruitful discussion with such a starting point.
This view is a misconception, and a typically American misconception. True, Americans have to deal with an entire political wing favorable to "Intelligent Design (ID)" and so-called "Creation Science"; I heartily agree with their worries about what some call "institutionalized ignorance". These theories have nothing to do with science.
The thing is, these very theories have nothing to do with what most Christians believe either. They have gained very little traction outside the United States, and, to a lesser degree, the United Kingdom. Despite what the prevalence of English on the Internet may let appear, most people, and therefore most Christians, are neither American nor from the UK. I live in Quebec, have been Catholic for most of my life (not anymore though), and I never heard of Intelligent Design before I started participating on American forums such as Neowin. It's just not debated here. And it's not debated in Europe either. Let's take a look at Wikipedia's page on Intelligent Design and its supporters:
- The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington
- The Center for Science and Culture: Headquarters Seattle, Washington, USA
- The Centre for Intelligent Design: Headquarters Glasgow, Scotland, UK
- The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center: Headquarters University of California, San Diego
- Truth in Science is a United Kingdom-based creationist organization which promotes the Discovery Institute's "Teach the Controversy" campaign.
I could repeat the analysis to I.D. book authors and show that they are mostly from the U.S. and U.K., but hopefully that should get the point across.
Creation Science, on the other hand, seems uniquely American. Its main proponents are:
- The Institute for Creation Research, based in Dallas, Texas
- Answers In Genesis, based in Petersburgh, Kentucky
Not only does Evolution not present a problem to Christians outside the U.S., but even inside, generalizing Christians as "non-evolutionists" is far from the truth. According to a 2007 survey by The Pew Forum, about 42% of American Christians believe "evolution is the best explanation for the origins of human life on earth". If Evangelical Protestants are excluded, this proportion jumps to 51%, above the national average of 48%. What's even more surprising is that acceptance is higher among 3 religious groups (Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist) than "Unaffiliated", which represents atheists, agnostics and all non-practioners.
That said, if most Christians are neither I.D. nor "Creation Science" proponents, what are their beliefs regarding Evolution?
The simple answer is that most Churches do not teach anything in particular regarding Evolution, because it's a scientific theory! There's no "religious teaching" regarding Evolution just like there's no religious teaching regarding General Relativity, Maxwell's Equations, or Newton's Physics.
All Christians assert as true certain shared propositions, such as: "There is an omnipotent being called God", and "God made man in his image". How can that be reconciled with the scientific view that all life emerged through random mutation and natural selection is up to debate, and contrarily to what many people think, there are a lot of different viewpoints and discussions on the subject, even inside the supposedly rigid and dogmatic Catholic Church.
Still, looking at Christianity as a whole (and we could probably extend that to most religions), we can say that most believe in some form of Theistic evolution. Which is NOT Intelligent Design, at all. Intelligent Design asserts that some mechanisms are too complex to be explained by Evolution alone, in blatant contradiction with research; Theistic evolution asserts that while Evolution may explain all complexity in life, it is merely the instrument God chose to realize his plan. It's not a scientific theory: it's a philosophical view that Evolution illustrates God's will and omnipotence. God is not viewed as an alternative to evolutionary mechanisms, but as the ultimate reason these mechanisms are allowed to exist.
I'm not saying this is what anyone should believe. I myself am quite divided on the subject: I still lean towards Theistic evolution, but outside the context of Revelation it is difficult to assert "God exists" and to define what he might be; that might be a topic for another blog post. All I want to say here is, when debating with a Christian, don't assume he rejects Evolution. Most likely, he agrees with you on pretty much everything, except that he's not materialistic: he thinks there's more to the Universe than atoms and their laws. And that's a perfectly respectable viewpoint, one most humans have believed and still do believe in - it simply should not influence how we do science.
This view is a misconception, and a typically American misconception. True, Americans have to deal with an entire political wing favorable to "Intelligent Design (ID)" and so-called "Creation Science"; I heartily agree with their worries about what some call "institutionalized ignorance". These theories have nothing to do with science.
The thing is, these very theories have nothing to do with what most Christians believe either. They have gained very little traction outside the United States, and, to a lesser degree, the United Kingdom. Despite what the prevalence of English on the Internet may let appear, most people, and therefore most Christians, are neither American nor from the UK. I live in Quebec, have been Catholic for most of my life (not anymore though), and I never heard of Intelligent Design before I started participating on American forums such as Neowin. It's just not debated here. And it's not debated in Europe either. Let's take a look at Wikipedia's page on Intelligent Design and its supporters:
- The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington
- The Center for Science and Culture: Headquarters Seattle, Washington, USA
- The Centre for Intelligent Design: Headquarters Glasgow, Scotland, UK
- The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center: Headquarters University of California, San Diego
- Truth in Science is a United Kingdom-based creationist organization which promotes the Discovery Institute's "Teach the Controversy" campaign.
I could repeat the analysis to I.D. book authors and show that they are mostly from the U.S. and U.K., but hopefully that should get the point across.
Creation Science, on the other hand, seems uniquely American. Its main proponents are:
- The Institute for Creation Research, based in Dallas, Texas
- Answers In Genesis, based in Petersburgh, Kentucky
Not only does Evolution not present a problem to Christians outside the U.S., but even inside, generalizing Christians as "non-evolutionists" is far from the truth. According to a 2007 survey by The Pew Forum, about 42% of American Christians believe "evolution is the best explanation for the origins of human life on earth". If Evangelical Protestants are excluded, this proportion jumps to 51%, above the national average of 48%. What's even more surprising is that acceptance is higher among 3 religious groups (Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist) than "Unaffiliated", which represents atheists, agnostics and all non-practioners.
That said, if most Christians are neither I.D. nor "Creation Science" proponents, what are their beliefs regarding Evolution?
The simple answer is that most Churches do not teach anything in particular regarding Evolution, because it's a scientific theory! There's no "religious teaching" regarding Evolution just like there's no religious teaching regarding General Relativity, Maxwell's Equations, or Newton's Physics.
All Christians assert as true certain shared propositions, such as: "There is an omnipotent being called God", and "God made man in his image". How can that be reconciled with the scientific view that all life emerged through random mutation and natural selection is up to debate, and contrarily to what many people think, there are a lot of different viewpoints and discussions on the subject, even inside the supposedly rigid and dogmatic Catholic Church.
Still, looking at Christianity as a whole (and we could probably extend that to most religions), we can say that most believe in some form of Theistic evolution. Which is NOT Intelligent Design, at all. Intelligent Design asserts that some mechanisms are too complex to be explained by Evolution alone, in blatant contradiction with research; Theistic evolution asserts that while Evolution may explain all complexity in life, it is merely the instrument God chose to realize his plan. It's not a scientific theory: it's a philosophical view that Evolution illustrates God's will and omnipotence. God is not viewed as an alternative to evolutionary mechanisms, but as the ultimate reason these mechanisms are allowed to exist.
I'm not saying this is what anyone should believe. I myself am quite divided on the subject: I still lean towards Theistic evolution, but outside the context of Revelation it is difficult to assert "God exists" and to define what he might be; that might be a topic for another blog post. All I want to say here is, when debating with a Christian, don't assume he rejects Evolution. Most likely, he agrees with you on pretty much everything, except that he's not materialistic: he thinks there's more to the Universe than atoms and their laws. And that's a perfectly respectable viewpoint, one most humans have believed and still do believe in - it simply should not influence how we do science.
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I was raised with science and like most people in the world I was raised within a fairly religious group but upon reaching maturity I formed my own opinions and made my own choices. Post 9-11 when there was a lot of negativity in the US towards Islam my interest in that was sparked because I'm a naturally curious person and I wanted to understand what about that particular religion allegedly lead to violence. Once I learned that it was mostly a case of zealots perverting the message of the religion and a dislike of the religion from the outside was due to fear and people spreading misinformation in the form of quotes without context. From there I spent quite a bit of time learning about other religions of the world as well. Through that and through my job I've come to know a great many people from all walks of life and I've learned that both the religious fanatics from the major religions and the non-religious people with a grudge against all things religious are a very vocal minority in their respective groups.
I've also learned that by far that the groups of people that are most intolerant of other people and most likely to spread ignorance and people who've recently converted to OR from a religion. I've met very few people that weren't in those groups that were completely intolerant of the ideas of evolution or religion. Those people are very disheartening and being in their presence tends to rapidly decrease faith in humanity.
By far the most important things that I've learned on my quest for knowledge are that the overall message when not corrupted when ignorance is "Don't be a jerk." - And when dealing with people that have different belief systems than oneself one should be kind and courteous. If you approach someone's way of life with ignorance and hatred, and you talk down to them, no matter how much you feel that your way is THE way, all you'll do is breed hatred, make no progress at all, and enlighten no one. When someone approaches me with ignorance I'm kind and courteous and don't respond in kind. My personal philosophy has become live and let live and it's served me well. I'm quite happy with my search for knowledge on the subject and that it allowed me to not be blinded by ignorance and made me a more informed and happier person.
I will admit that sometimes reading posts on the Neowin forum and others is kind of disheartening but I just have to remind myself that I'm dealing with the vocal minorities from their respective groups. Thank you for a fantastic post, Dr_Asik and I hope that it brings understanding and hopefully tolerance to at least one person who would otherwise have neither. =)