[Theo]

Decendence from a common ancestor is perfectly compatible with Christianity. However, this is not true if one holds to the literal inerrancy of the Bible.

I can't see how an even non-literal reading of Genesis 1-3 (and Jesus' reinforcement of that account) can support your thesis that Darwinistic evolution and Christianity are compatible. Consider, for example, the term "kind" used in Genesis. Explicitly incompatible with Darwin's theory.

Believe (even loosely) the Bible. Or believe Darwin. You really can't believe both.

[Buck W.]

And I can't see how your thesis that even a nonliteral reading of the Bible remains inconsistent with evolution.

Personally, I believe that God is quite clever, and wants us to be, too.

[mugs99]

Believe (even loosely) the Bible. Or believe Darwin. You really can't believe both.
The Old Testament is a Hebrew book. The New Testament is a Christian book. How do you answer those Christians who say you really can't believe both?
.

[muawiyah]

"Kind" was not used to mean "species" in the most ancient of the texts. Anything before Linnaeus involving "kind" or "species" means little more than "geneal outline" and "it's an animal" or "it's a plant", or "it's another green thing". Those folks didn't know about the microfauna and single celled critters.

You might want to take a look at some of the research done on how human beings categorize "things" (living or dead). There appears to be one or more structures in the brain already hardwired to assist in the categorization.Here's a quicky about how rhesus monkeys do it ~ http://web.mit.edu/~davidf/www/ABCNEWS_CatsandDogs.htm

There are a hundred thousand or more references to "how the brain categorizes" on the net, so read your heart out.

Oh, yeah, the brain "categorizes" different aspects of the same thing ~ e.g. animal shape in one place, animal color in another.

I suspect most of the intensity of emotion about "kind" arises out of the realization by many people that they do, in fact, think that way ~ even if the critters are unrelated.

As an example, remember when folks wanted to believe the black and white giant panda was closely related to the black and white raccoon?

They're not ~ they're just another kind of big ol'fluffy bear that can smash a steel beerkeg with simple, playful strokes.

So, knowing what I know now about how brain categorization works, I understand what the ancients were saying. BTW, I also have to note here that there are instructions in Genesis about how to set up a Memory Palace in your mind to help you remember vast quantities of information better, so that means the ancients, too, had an objective understanding of how we remember. They'd likely not stumble over an idea like evolution, but'd just pop it into the memory slot appropriate for such processes.