I'm curious if any of the Christians of this board believe in evolution. If evolution is true, then the bible must be incorrect (the story of Adam and Eve). How do you guys justify this with your faith? If the bible is incorrect in the origin of life, then why believe any of it?

I was a Christian a long time ago. I was told that some things in Bible are written in figurative language, i.e. open to interpretation. Like Genesis.

Here is some info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution

C.S. Lewis the great Christian apologist was a theistic evolutionist.

I guess that blows your theory...

A lot of Christians admit evolution is real (due to the overwhelming evidence) but tend to qualify this admission by saying things like 'but who really knows exactly what happened, the details don't matter - unlike Jesus's love for us' or 'I believe God interfered at some point to evolve mankind'. A sort of evolution lite.

A scientifically minded Christian has to agree that Genesis is allegorical.

I am, ask away if you want but it's really not that interesting. I view much of the bible as metaphorical teachings passed down in a way that people at the time could understand as an explanation for their reality.

I assume most practicing Catholics agree, including the Pope.

I know a lot of Catholics and Lutherans, don't know any who don't believe evolution. If God is as smart as they say, setting up something like evolution shouldn't be that tough for him/her/it.

I'm a Jew, but otherwise basically this.

Agreed, I don't think it's a particularly tough hurdle to leap as a Christian, which is why I'm always slightly bemused by creationists and the much tougher obstacle they overcome by continuing believe in blatant fantasy over reality.

In the UK most Christians (particularly Christian leaders) find fundamentalist creationism somewhere between quaint and heretical

I understand that to some extent Muslims are UK's imported equivalent of the US Bible Belt.

There's probably some truth in that.

And is there any reason not to think that the "jesus is literally the son of god" part is not also metaphorical teaching for people living in millenia past?

hey joker,

everyone is different. we're all a product of our experiences...everything we think and believe is due to a prior cause/experience.

you were raised to believe that everything in the bible is true. evolution can't be true because it contradicts the bible. so when you encounter and accept a fact like evolution, it's pretty easy to throw the rest of the bible out.

many christians weren't raised like that. the contents of the bible aren't actually relevant. they focus on the parts they like and ignore the rest because all that really matters to them is that god loves them and god is working for them and if they believe this they get to live forever.

so little contradictions like evolution aren't a problem. big bang theory? i guess god created the singularity. evolution? sure, god must have done evolution. my mother died of cancer when i was 13? since god loves me and my mom, killing my mother must have been part of his plan. a tsunami kills 200,000 people? god loves me but he sure is mysterious. a killer asteroid is headed for earth that is guaranteed to wipe out humanity? god is love, i guess it's time for all of us to join him in heaven.

Is this a surprising insight? A literal "son" implies sexual intercourse with the mother and a merging of dna to produce a offspring with genetic characteristics of the parents. Given that God is a spiritual being, none of that makes much sense in the literal sense. I imagine that the realization that something at best analogous to the literal "father/son" relationship is not even a contemporary concept. If that is just occuring to you, your entire view of religion is not particularly impressive independent of your final stance.

I doubt you know much about religion or evolution. The bible is about wrong-doing, falling short of the mark -- and people's response to that. Have you ever felt like you fell short?

Besides prompting you to criticize people's beliefs how does evolution impact your life on a day-to-day basis?

Assuming that one of my hobbies is not criticizing other people's beliefs, on a poker message board, what does evolution have to offer me?

Perhaps you should consider explaining atheistic views and leave it to theists to explain theistic views. Unless of course you wish to be humorous. In which case you should consider injecting some actual humor.

Except for the most blinkered inerrantists, this shouldn't be that hard a question to answer. It is like asking, does the metaphorical nature of "The Waste Land" mean that my history professor is lying to me? The book of Genesis is very different from the passages by Paul about the divinity of Jesus. Becoming convinced that parts of Genesis are mythical shouldn't lead you to thinking that all of the Bible is so.

That being said, Christian theologians in fact have looked very closely at this question and many of the most prominent of them have said that the "Jesus is literally the son of God" part is metaphorical.

Edit: and I don't even mean the more obviously metaphorical "son" part of your formulation as per RLK's comment.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying these Christian theologians don't believe in the virgin birth? (I think this is what uke_master was arguing, not a semantic word game based on the word 'father') If so, what percentage of these prominent Christian theologians would you say hold this view?

The point of my question isn't that it cannot be answered, because it can be, but to identify a tension that does need to be resolved by individuals. Namely, there is a tendency on the one hand to appeal to the bible as an ultimate authority and base claims about what it allegedly says on, say, gay marriage, as a deep and inerrant truth. And on the other side, there is a tendency to explain things like genesis purely in allegorical terms. So there ought to be some way of trying to judge or differentiate which parts of the bible should be considered as true, which parts are allegorical, and the whole spectrum of what one might mean by a word like "true".

Now I think people can certainly come up with some judge that says that Paul is fundamentally different than genesis and so should be interpreted in very different ways. Part of the trickiness of this is that different people do come up with very different ways.

As for the DNA business from RKL, I think it is clear that I meant the standard christian interpretation of mary being a virgin who is fathered by God...I don't think any claims are commonly made about DNA.

No, I was saying that they don't believe that Jesus is/was God (this can be tricky--the conception of divinity or god held by these theologians is also not very orthodox).

I have no idea what percentage of theologians I'm describing. I am primarily thinking of the many prominent liberal and other non-orthodox theologians of the last couple centuries.

I disagree. As a scientifically-minded OEC (Old Earth Creationist), I have no problem taking a literal view of Genesis.

Just to be clear, by literal, do you mean 6-literal days creation? (Six 24-hour periods)

You must not understand the meanings of the words "scientifically" and/or "literal".

perhaps you should say that i am wrong and why, instead of invoking the "shut up and go away" defense.

all your response indicates to me is that i've said something true and that you do not like it.

Knowledge of your Gods creation and universe.