Dr. Adam Johns
ENGCMP 0200
27 January 2009
At a young age, I was instilled with the values of the Catholic Church. I attended church every Sunday and went to Sunday school. I was baptized, received First Communion and Confirmation. But as I grew older and more mature, my parents stopped forcing me to go to Church. This was a crossroads in my life where I decided what to believe in and where my personal faith truly lay. I stopped attending Church weekly and eventually stopped going altogether. I believe in a higher power, but I’m starting to realize that much of my faith is beginning to go into scientific developments. Some of these developments are extremely controversial, especially with Christians. The reason being is scientists are getting dangerously close to “playing God”, which Christians believe is going to far and that humans have no right to meddle with the affairs of what are considered God’s work. Other scientific hypotheses challenge the very creation of mankind by God, which is Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Christians believe that “…an omnipotent God created each species instantaneously exactly as it now appears” (Silver 93). In Lee Silver’s Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality, it becomes blatantly obvious that Silver is not a “man of God”. Silver is a molecular biology professor at Princeton University and sees the world for what it is, and does not put his faith in an omnipotent figure. Silver claims that evolution “…doesn’t just contradict scriptural details; it completely eliminates any role for God…” (Silver 93). This statement is very bold to make because it bashes what Christians believe. They believe that God created one man, Adam. From the rib of Adam, God created his companion Eve. Adam and Eve are believed to be the starting point at which mankind began. To say that humans gradually evolved from genetic mutations occurring in generations of apes is heresy. Also, the theory of natural selection, paints a gruesome picture of the past in which weaker human evolutions are killed off by the more superior species of man (Silver). This is not an image that the Church would approve of.
I believe that evolution has caused some Christians to question their own creation from God when such hard evidence is shown to prove the theory of Darwin. Presently, evolution is still a controversial subject and even has its opposing view, which is known as Creationism. Creationism is the basic idea that God created everything. One reason why Christians oppose the theory of evolution and natural selection is their belief that “…all men and women-and no organisms other than men and women-are created in the image of God” (Silver 93). Upon reading this statement and comparing it to the theory of evolution, Christians believe that this results in “…an imperfect image of God” (Silver 94). The thought that God would be viewed as a quasi-ape man is utterly blasphemous, and exceedingly offensive to their beliefs. I personally believe that evolution is a scientific fact, despite the fact that I was raised on the very same values that object this way of thinking and reject it as fact. There is no convincing everyone to agree with Darwin, and I have therefore come to the conclusion that it will continue to be a topic of debate in the future. There may be a few Christians who eventually accept the theory, but still hold onto their Christian beliefs. There could also be people who will not accept it, even if the evidence is so strong that it has become fact. They will continue to believe in Creationism because it is what they were brought up to believe in and think it blasphemous to think otherwise.
The evidence is there. I do not think its coincidence that our DNA and a chimpanzee’s DNA are 99% similar on comparison. One reason mankind and chimpanzees look and act different could be due to the arrangement of our genes and the regulation of said genes. This is almost indisputable proof that evolution did occur. Eventually, Pope John Paul II had to comment on the growing controversy of Darwin’s theory, stating that “…physical evolution was gradual and continuous…spiritual evolution took place at a single instant in time” (Silver 94). The pope decides to distinguish between spiritual and physical evolution. In this quote, he does seem to more or less agree with the theory of evolution, but touches upon spiritual evolution, which occurred at the instant of conception. I think the pope’s statement satisfied both parties. Scientists were content that the pope did not deny evolution; Christians by acknowledging spiritual evolution as a fact that scientists cannot disprove.
I believe that evolution and Christianity will continue to be at war with each other. However, Christianity could possibly embrace evolution as fact and not take the story of Adam and Eve as a reality. The morals and values of the story could remain true to Christianity, but they would except the fact that mankind went through evolution in order to become the people they are today. An even more extreme thought would be Christians somehow incorporate the theory of evolution into their beliefs and how God had a part in the gradual development of modern day man.
Works Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism. 26 January 2009Silver, Lee M. Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.
3 comments:
You have many well thought out ideas and you definitely followed the prompt. I also like how you talked about your personal beliefs and your transition from a Catholic to basically a Deist. However, your thoughts seem somewhat incomplete. The paper as a whole isn't very organized and there is a lot of repetition. Also, at the end you don't really finish your thought. You may want to elaborate some more on your final thoughts. Also, there are a few grammatical errors and you lack transitions. Many of your sentences begin with "I believe".
Ryan Lynn
Dr. Adam Johns
ENGCMP 0200
3 February 2009
At a young age, I was instilled with the values of the Catholic Church. I attended church every Sunday and went to Sunday school. I was baptized, received First Communion and Confirmation. But as I grew older and more mature, my parents stopped forcing me to go to Church. This was a crossroads in my life where I decided what to believe in and where my personal faith truly lay. I stopped attending Church weekly and eventually stopped going altogether. I believe in a higher power, but I’m starting to realize that much of my faith is beginning to go into scientific developments. Some of these developments are extremely controversial, especially with Christians. The reason being is scientists are getting dangerously close to “playing God”, which Christians believe is going to far and that humans have no right to meddle with the affairs of what are considered God’s work. Other scientific hypotheses challenge the very creation of mankind by God, which is Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Christians believe that “…an omnipotent God created each species instantaneously exactly as it now appears” (Silver 93). In Lee Silver’s Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality, it becomes blatantly obvious that Silver is not a “man of God”. Silver is a molecular biology professor at Princeton University and sees the world for what it is, and does not put his faith in an omnipotent figure. Silver claims that evolution “…doesn’t just contradict scriptural details; it completely eliminates any role for God…” (Silver 93). This statement is very bold to make because it bashes what Christians believe. They believe that God created one man, Adam. From the rib of Adam, God created his companion Eve. Adam and Eve are believed to be the starting point at which mankind began. To say that humans gradually evolved from genetic mutations occurring in generations of apes is heresy, as is anything going against the word of God. Also, the theory of natural selection paints a gruesome picture of the past in which weaker human evolutions are killed off by the more superior species of man (Silver). This is not an image that the Church would approve of, in that there were multiple species of mankind to precede the modernized version, which was believed to be the only one created by God.
It has been proven that our DNA and a chimpanzee’s DNA are 99% similar upon comparison. This is almost indisputable proof that evolution did occur. But, Christians still have problems coping with the fact that we were once primitive beings and not always what is considered “modern man”. The idea that we evolved from primitive forms of man gives Christians “…an imperfect image of God” (Silver 94). Christians think this because mankind was supposedly created in the very image of God himself. This belief is on the opposite spectrum of the evolutionary theory, where we were less intelligent beings. The thought that God could be viewed as a quasi-ape man is utterly blasphemous, and exceedingly offensive to Christian thinking. However, it is hard to argue against evolution when such hard evidence is being used to prove its authenticity.
Evolution has caused such a stir in the world of Christianity that Christians have created their own creation theory, known as Creationism. Creationism is the basic idea that God created everything and everyone as it is now. Creationism is taught as an alternative to the theory of evolution. Pope John Paul II eventually commented on the growing controversy of Darwin’s theory, stating that “…physical evolution was gradual and continuous…spiritual evolution took place at a single instant in time” (Silver 94). Here, the pope distinguishes between spiritual and physical evolution. In this quote, the Pope does not try to disprove the idea of evolution. In fact, it appears that he almost acknowledges it as fact by stating that it is a gradual process. This shows a possibility for more Christians to accept the theory of evolution, but continue to hold on to their beliefs as well. The Pope also introduces a new concept, the notion of spiritual evolution. This form of evolution cannot be disproven by scientists and happens instantaneously, unlike human evolution. This gives Christians the belief that God instilled spirituality into them and it was not something that they gained over time, but rather something they have always had.
Evolution and Christianity will continue to be at war with each other. However, Christianity could possibly embrace evolution as fact and not take the story of Adam and Eve as a reality. The morals and values of the story could remain true to Christianity, but they would except the fact that mankind went through evolution in order to become the people they are today. They could also change the belief that God created man in a form that has not changed since the beginning of his existence. An even more extreme thought would be Christians somehow incorporate the theory of evolution into their beliefs and that God had a part in the gradual development of modern day man. This would allow for a sort of marriage between Christian values and Darwin’s theory.
Works Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism. 26 January 2009
Silver, Lee M. Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.
jmv31 - Without asking you to be wordy or repetitive, I would have liked you to push your ideas further - for instance, where, specifically, would you have liked to see things cut, and where
should it have been expanded?
Ryan - I liked the beginning and the end of this paper. I liked the beginning because it was personal, direct, and almost passionate: it was about something that mattered to you. I liked the end because you're doing something very different from Silver, which is also at least somewhat distinct from the beliefs with which you are raised: you are arguing, in sympathy with some contemporary theologians, that Darwinism and Christianity are not incompatible.
This raises the question, of course, as to whether you are advocating deism (first paragraph), a revised Catholicism (last paragraph), or something else entirely. There are at least two main arguments here, and much of the intervening material doesn't accomplish as much for you as it could & should, because of your ultimately wandering focus.
To be clear, I think the deism focus is good, as is the revisionary Catholicism focus. I also think that you could have written the paper in a very personal way, or in a somewhat less personal way. The difficulty is that you shift both in tone and argument, and therefore don't realize your potential.
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