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To: miliantnutcase
"Can you worship God, and believe that the theory of evolution is still plausible?"

I have heard many people assert that it is possible to simultaneously believe in God and in "the theory of evolution." But this is mere assertion. Usually it is accompanied by an argument that "so-snd-so" has no problem with it. But that is not even a feeble attempt at explanation.

Can anyone here give a meaningful explanation of how this conundrum is resolved? How can nature be inintended if by "God" we mean an intending being who is the source of all things?

102 posted on 05/29/2007 12:01:45 AM PDT by cookcounty (No journalist ever won a prize for reporting the facts. --Telling big stories? Now that's a hit.)
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To: cookcounty
"Can anyone here give a meaningful explanation of how this conundrum is resolved? How can nature be inintended if by "God" we mean an intending being who is the source of all things?

Sorry, I intended "how can nature be unintended," obviously (there's a stupid joke lurking in there somewhere).

104 posted on 05/29/2007 12:08:26 AM PDT by cookcounty (No journalist ever won a prize for reporting the facts. --Telling big stories? Now that's a hit.)
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To: cookcounty
""Can you worship God, and believe that the theory of evolution is still plausible?""

The majority of biologists I've known have been religious. A few atheists. I can't imagine how or why the question comes up. Evolution is just a mechanism for how species change into other species. I don't understand what it is about the theory of evolution, versus say quantum theory, that sparks such holy wars and inquisitional questions about people's belief in God. It's just another G--d-mn branch of science.

My only guess, about your conundrum is that the concept of God, all our individual experiences of God in our minds, are so vastly different from each other's, that our casual use of the word "God" is a source of great confusion. My own experience of God's love may be so different from another person's, that while I have no expectaion of an active and "intelligently" directed interaction between God and the physical universe, or rather I have an expectation of no such interaction, having never perceived such an interaction myself, other people in their own minds might have very different perceptions, and therefore expectations.

But I have to say that's very vague blather. I tend to avoid thinking in vague blather. I think in terms of the physical and the measureable. And I can't imagine how one would measure, in the physical world, an influence of God's hand. It's one thing to marvel at a pretty lilac bush, like I'm doing now, still sitting out in my yard in the warm spring night, and think, wow, God is great. God gave me a beautiful universe, God loves me. But that's just vague words, and useless for describing, analyzing, and understanding the universe. I get the God thing, I really do. I just don't think it's possible to measure or quantify or nail down in any rational way, any specific trace of God's hand in the physical day to day world. An idea that explains all explains nothing. The hard work is in the details, not just looking slackjawed at something pretty and saying "God did it."

And the "ID" people, that's just a cammo paintjob on Creationism, forget it.
113 posted on 05/29/2007 1:05:03 AM PDT by omnivore
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