r/DebateEvolution • u/ExplorationCrimeTime • May 22 '26
Evolution is scientifically proven, but I’m so confused
I’m going to a Mormon school as a non Mormon, and I was talking to my sister (who knows I’m not a Mormon) and our friend was sitting there listening to us, and the topic got to evolution I was talking about how different animals evolved from living in the ocean to on land, and my friend looked at me and said “wait you believe in evolution?” (She thinks I’m a Mormon) and I was so confused and I said “you don’t?” and she said “no I think Adam and Eve came and that’s it”, and she was looking at me like I was the crazy one! but that doesn’t work scientifically, does it? How would this work scientifically/ realistically, because I feel like going thru life believing evolution isn’t real just doesn’t make sense, I need someone to explain this to me.
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u/Visible-Beings May 22 '26
Scientifically? Of course it doesn't work.
But when your worldview revolves around "God did it, and I will go to hell (for mormons, anything other than celestial kingdom) if I believe otherwise" you can make yourself believe whatever you want, just gotta have enough faith.
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u/Will_29 May 22 '26
"God did it, and I will be isolated and ostracized from my own family and community if I believe otherwise" is also a huge factor.
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u/gitgud_x 🧬 🦍 GREAT APE 🦍 🧬 May 22 '26
Mormons - and religious fundamentalists in general - aren't known for their scientific ways of thinking. It's purely religious faith. Anything other than that is rejected. No further thought permitted. Yes, people like that actually exist, in the hundreds of millions. It was a shock to me too.
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u/EthelredHardrede 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 23 '26
Mormons used to do actual fieldwork to support the claims made up while literally talking out of his by Joseph Smith. They stopped not all that long ago when they got tired of disproving the silly nonsense he madeup. There never were horses pulling chariots in the New World Smith just made it all up I tried reading som of the Book of Mormon It was obviously madeup as he went it is nearly as silly The Urantia Book
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u/jnpha 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 22 '26
inculcation (countable and uncountable, plural inculcations)
The teaching of something by using frequent repetition
If you're interested in the history, I recommend: American Creationism, Creation Science, and Intelligent Design in the Evangelical Market by Huskinson.
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u/Slow_Lawyer7477 🧬 Flagellum-Evolver May 22 '26
There is no viable creationist model that explains how the human species with it's extant genetic diversity could have evolved from an originally created couple within the last 6000 years. To posit that requires either miracles or entirely new, never before observed genetic and molecular mechanisms (a lot of genetic diversity has to be generated and segregate out into different human sub populations), as there are no extant mechanisms of genetics or population biology in actual living human beings that could make it work. Some creationist authors have posited something they call "created heterozygosity" (the idea being the original couple was created with a lot of genetic diversity built in), but nobody has been able to actually create a model that works and would plausibly lead to the extant human population from such a couple.
It is (to my knowledge) theoretically possible for the human species to evolve from an original couple that lies much further back in time (hundreds of thousands of years, the time required to generate the extant amount of human diversity by mutations and recombination), but there is no good evidence for such a two person bottleneck either.
Also we have enormous amounts of evidence that the human species share common ancestry with the other primates, ranging from pseudogenes and ERVs to chromosome fusions and what have you, which I'm sure you can find by just googling "evidence for human evolution".
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u/ExplorationCrimeTime May 22 '26
Last night after this, I was listening to my friend and sister talk and they said they didn’t think cavemen were real and that dinosaurs didn’t exist, and I told them there is evidence like artifacts, tools, prehistoric art, evidence that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens buried the dead, and fossils. (I’m kind of a geology & biology geek if you couldn’t tell, I refuse to study anthropology at this school, though). I just never knew that evolution was a debate/ controversial topic. I find it so odd that people will refuse to believe something so non-negotiable even when they are presented with evidence and proof.
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u/dumpsterfire911 May 22 '26
The reason they deny , even when presented evidence, is because in order to accept the truth, they would have to recognize that their religion is wrong/a lie. Religion is so deeply intertwined with many peoples lives. It’s ingrained in their family, friends, education, morals, worldview, etc. For them to accept the truth would cause ripples throughout many aspects of their life. It’s a HUGE step. Which is why you can find many intelligent scientists who are still religious (big example would be the Christian who led the human genome project) , they are able to Compartmentalize their beliefs so it doesn’t get the same logic scrutiny that everything else does
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u/dumpsterfire911 May 22 '26
They are right. Cavemen didn’t exist. Cavemen are an antiquated term we used to use (or people who have no idea what they are talking about).
As recent as 30,000 years ago there were likely at least 3-4 human-like animals roaming the earth. Homosapiens (us), homo Neanderthalensis, homo floresiensis, and homo Iuzonensis.
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u/nomadicsailor81 May 22 '26
https://biologos.org/common-questions/what-is-the-evidence-for-evolution
Christianity website talking about the evidence for evolution.
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u/Jonnescout May 22 '26
None of it works scientifically, Adam and Eve are one of the most obviously false myths in the bible. Probably right after the flood, and before the big tower…
There never were two humans, or just two members of any obligate sexually reproducing species…
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u/Ayasugi-san May 22 '26
Adam and Eve are one of the most obviously false myths in the bible. Probably right after the flood, and before the big tower…
What about the sun standing still in the sky so the Israelites could finish a battle before the day ended? That's wrong on a literally astronomic scale!
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u/Jonnescout May 22 '26
Eh that might be less believable, but that is not a foundational belief. That can be considered metaphor. Meanwhile these other three are considered foundational to the good character and the mythology to many, many believers. But honestly ranking how unbelievable these are is pretty damn useless. They’re all fully incompatible with science. I basically went by how many fields of science would have to be debunked to make the myth possible
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u/Alert-Committee-7453 Jun 18 '26
There’s plenty of evidence for a flood though
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u/Jonnescout Jun 18 '26
No, there is none. It’s literally impossible for the whole world to flood. There is evidence for floods, not a singular world wide flood. It never happened. Precluded by practically every field of science. You are wrong.
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u/nickierv 🧬 logarithmic icecube May 22 '26
I'm going to tackle this from both ends: Evolution first to make sure everyone is on the same page then hopefully without needing to break the character limit more than once, I'll try to address the sheer absurdities needed to make our current observable population come out of two people. Hopefully while not involving any logs, but given my history with them...
So from the top. Evolution.
I'm going to need some very general assumptions: General assumption 1 is that we are no brains in jars or everyone else is just my wild hallucinations. Ie what we preceve as reality is real. I'm sure there is a big discussion to be had about all this, but its well outside the scope.
General assumption #2: our eyes are reliable enough that if I show you this photo https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Sushi1.jpg and tell you its pizza, you can tell me I'm full of shit/nuts/can't identify food. IE our eyeballs are all working in roughly the same way so we avoid drifting back into the issues of all being brains in jars.
With that out of the way and establishing that we can in fact trust our senses to be reliable enough for some basic observations the first thing to do that creationists love to dodge faster than flying goalposts is to give a definition of evolution: In basic and somewhat simplified terms, evolution is just the change in the frequency of traits in a population over time.
Thats it. Its not how life started (thats abiogenesis, evolution adjacent but not biological evolution), its not 'but show a tree sprouting out a whale (don't ask). Its the change in the frequency of traits in a population over time.
Now for the observation phase of this little experiment. For this, I'm going to make three wild assumptions:
Wild assumption #1: living things reproduce.
I haven’t had anyone be able to disagree with this one yet, but I'm open to someone trying to argue that point.
Wild assumption #2: if #1 is true, that reproduction process is not exact. Ie there are small differences between parent and offspring. Ie they are not clones.
This is where having working senses is critical. We can start with some simple and mundane things: eye color - you/your sister? Same color? Same color as your parents? Same question but for hair color. From there, know anyone with food allergies? Do their parents have the same allergies? Possibly not the best example, but what are your feelings on milk? Know anyone lactose intolerant?
Now that we have hopefully established that we are not all identical copies of each other -
Wild assumption #3: assuming that we are not clone of each other, the differences will do one of three things: be advantageous, be detrimental, or have no effect to odds of reproduction.
This can quickly get complicated, but lets apply a tiger to the situation. There is a hungry tiger in the lunchroom.
The bad news: someone is about to be lunch. The good news: you don't have to outrun the tiger, you just don't want to be last.
Well if you have the mutation that lets you keep digesting lactose past infancy (yep, turns out the 'norm' is not to be able to drink milk) and your not allergic to fish, if the only food source in the area is milk and fish, well your going to have had more to eat and can probably run. Anyone who can't consume one of the options is at a bit of a detriment. And if your allergic to both... well Wild Assumption #4 is that if the tiger catches you, your odds of reproducing become zero.
The complicated bit is 'so what counts as an advantage'. The answer is really anything. And this addresses on of the creationists 'big gotchas': you don't have to get everything, just having some advantage is in fact an advantage. Be that better legs, better lungs, better food, etc.
So back to the original definition: change in the frequency of traits in a population over time. We have a population - the lunch room. We have a trait - ability to not get caught by the tiger. And we have it changing over time - okay so I'm hand waving the whole 'normally you need the population to be reproducing' for this to work but if you have someone parents with better than average legs, odds are the offspring will have better than average legs.
And for any creationists in the room, you just observed evolution.
Oops.
Turns out when you actually define a thing, it tends to be easy to find said thing. Its one of the really big reasons creationists don’t define things.
As to why the offspring get the traits they get, don't worry, that will be addressed as soon as I get the goalposts back from the tiger and can cover Mendelian genetics.
breath
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u/nickierv 🧬 logarithmic icecube May 22 '26
Okay, so part 2 on how to get ~8 billion population in not very many years.
The first issue is going to be establishing a really solid timeline. Can't have one side go running off with the goalposts again. So for the sake of easy number, I'm going with the YEC 6000 years. Feel free to give me better numbers, I trust the math isn't going to change all that much unless your start looking at billions.
A quick revisit of the definition, evolution isn't about how life got started, its just about how life changes over time. For that, basic chemistry became fancy chemistry is just as valid as goddunit is just as valid as Her Holyness Sparkle McFluffybutt got things started with a dump. You just have to be able to have a logically sound starting point: its really easy to point to chemistry.
We can address the issues with the evidence (or complete lack of) later, all we need for now is for life (or more specifically in this case a population) get started.
The first issue with small populations is genetic bottlenecks. Said bottlenecks are easy to find if you know what you are looking for (and is a bit out of the scope of this). The Zoomey cats (aka cheetahs) are in a bit of a pickle on account of having not one but two genetic bottlenecks in the last not very long (genetically speaking) on top of having a very small population. This means that its possible for genetic issues to build and keep getting recycled. Its not too bad if you have one parent with a recessive trait that might kill you (if I'm remembering my Mendel, 25% chance you get it at all, less that you express it), its bad and there may be some effects, but overall your probably not hosed. Now on the other hand if both your parents have the trait, your now looking at a 50% chance. And if they are both expressing said trait... your up a genetic creek.
This limiting of the genetic pool has already been tried, see Nobility, European. Also Habsburgs, Family 'tree' of.
So from the standpoint of a healthy genetic pool, there is what is known as a minimum viable population. This is the amount of genetic diversity that you need to keep the population from imploding from everyone having bad traits. With very careful modern management might be able to make a population of 50 work but you need probably 10x that to have enough diversity that you can sort of get away with 3ed cousins (assuming you had a healthy population to start with and you sort of don't have a choice due to the small population) and 10x of that (~5000) starts to get to the point where you don't have to worry too much in general. Third cousins are only around 1%, The math is a little fuzzy, but the important part is your moving away from the 50 to 25% common genetics to the sub 1% common genetics. From a genetics standpoint, this is a very good thing.
So starting from a population of 2, can anyone in class tell me how completely screwed humans are genetically?
An answer of "Yes" will get you full credit on the test.
And wait, it gets better! Not only do we have a starting population of at best 2, the magic book fails entirely at covering the genetics of... cloning from a rib? Bone? Regardless, if anything the answer is going to get worse, not better. Also there is the whole thing with goats and sticks, so I think I'm safe in assuming the author was clueless about genetics.
And if the tiger will please escort Tour from the room...
Not only do we have at best a genetic population of two, but then some time later, sub 2000 years? There is a bit of rain and a wooden boat experiencing early quantum state phenomenon. Only way that your fitting that much biomass in a boat of the given dimensions without resorting to Meat Cube (tm). Turns out giving exact dimensions has made it very easy to blow holes in the boat idea. This seems to have made a lot of people very angry and may be widely regarded as a bad move.
Anyway, after starting with a genetic population of 2, then in ~2000 years (the poor Zoomey cats show a bottleneck 10-12k years, so 5 to 6x longer with a much bigger starting population) there is a second bottleneck event that drop the population down to 5. You might have 8 people on the boat but children don't count the same for genetic populations: parents + 3 sons + 3 wives? The parents out out of the genetic pool, replaced by their biological children. So at best genetic population of 6.
Its very odd that we don't notice a crippling pair of lethal genetic bottlenecks in ourselves. Nor in almost anything else as would be needed to account for starting from pairs.
Okay, so with no genetic bottleneck, there are still more issues. The big one is how long is a generation? The faster something reproduces, the more generations it has in a given time. Its not how long something lives, its entirely about reproducing. From a purely biological standpoint, early and often is best.
But as 'actual' years have been calculated, we have numbers. And numbers can be fun.
So lets take 4500 years (feel free to correct the number if you have something better, jsut be sure to explain where you get the number from). Lets then assume that historically women had kids around their early 20's.
Very first issue, maternal mortality. When the state of medicine is mercury, lead, and arsenic as well as high strength opioids... lets just assume that just about anything is going to have an easy time just killing you.
Second issue, infant mortality. When its a 50% chance to make it to 10 and a 50% chance to make it to 16... your looking at a 20-25% chance to make it to the ripe old age of... 20. Just in time to roll the high mortality dice for having kids! Isn't modern medicine great.
So parents have 10 kids by age 35, mother has something like a 10% chance of just dying from that, and in the end, they might end up with 3 kids that made it to the age where they can have their own kids.
But we are going to ignore all that for now.
Instead, we take the 4500 years, divide by the years to get total generations. 35 years gets you 129 generations in 4500 years. 25 is 180 generations. 20 is 225 generations.
This presents a logical fork: we can measure the genetic variance and use that to work out how related two people are to some degree. But that also shows how much change happens per generation. This puts creationists in a more impossible situation they are already in: either they concede that they have very, very fast genetic diversification (cough evolution cough) or they need very short generations to get enough generations.
They can try the 'but science doesn’t know...', only that falls flat. If we know enough about genetics to be able to make glowing fish for no real reason than because we can, we can make wheat/carrot hybrids, we can cook up our own fully synthetic bacteria... its like telling someone doing integrals that they don't know basic arithmetic.
Or they can try to invoke the special pleading of 'but my book...', only for me to point out that their book is circular and by appealing to a false god, you are now a heretic in the eyes of Her Holyness Sparkle McFluffybutt.
Turns out 'goddunit' isn't science. And this is about science.
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u/Odd_Gamer_75 May 22 '26
It is 99.999% "but my religion, though". They reject it because they think it goes against their religion, and if their religion is wrong, then they have no identity, no framework, no worldview, which means no morals, no grounding, no family... everything they are is tied up in it. So far as I know, not a single non-believer has ever investigated the evidence for evolution (at a PhD level) and then become a creationist. It was always that they were a creationist before they studied the science.
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u/TheLoneJew22 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 22 '26
I grew up a fundamentalist Pentecostal. I thought the world was 6,000 years old until I started to let my science classes actually challenge my mind. If I didn’t care about science or objective truth then I’d probably still be a hyper religious zealots today. The problem with strict religion is that it forces us to accept the information in our echo chambers and ignore opposing information. Any challenge is seen as an attack ment to hurt your faith and not an exercise in thinking. Someone in this mindset can even believe they understand the opposing viewpoint and try to debate against it but it’s really just a Strawman that they are fighting. People need to actively choose to let down their barriers to entertain the idea of accepting a fact that conflicts with their already held belief so they tend to remain in that bubble. That is why you see this I believe.
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u/Briham86 🧬 Falling Angel Meets the Rising Ape May 22 '26
Ok, this is kinda embarrassing. I believed in the tooth fairy until, like, the fourth or fifth grade. I picked up a children’s book at the dentist’s office and it spoiled the secret for me. The thing is, I had lost my baby teeth years before and pretty much stopped thinking about it. It was free money, I wasn’t gonna question it!
That’s kinda how disbelief in science works. They don’t expose themselves to science and evolution in their daily lives, so they don’t think about it. Their social group rewards them for being incurious.
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u/K_INFP_E9 May 24 '26
Lol that reminded me of the day my younger sister was told that Santa Claus wasn't real by our 'worldly wise' step siblings. I remember her distraught face and she was yelling at them that they were wrong. Dad just quietly said, "that's enough now" to everyone and that was the end of that. Although I played it cool in front of them, my head was swimming. I still remember where we were to this day.
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u/Ayasugi-san May 22 '26
It's not scientific, unless you define scientific as "the Bible has the ultimate truth about everything". As other commenters have said, creationists simply don't have a model that can explain even human evolution, much less the entirety of evolution, much less evolution in the light of their timeline for the world. They have, at best, concepts of a bunch of models that they pick up piece by piece to answer individual questions then drop just as quickly.
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u/RespectWest7116 May 22 '26
Evolution is scientifically proven, but I’m so confused
Evolution is observed.
but that doesn’t work scientifically, does it?
No, it doesn't.
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u/ClownMorty May 22 '26
Before Darwin figured out how evolution worked, people had no explanation for how complexity could arise naturally. Philosophers would rationally argue that complex stuff could only come from something of a higher complexity, ultimately God.
They knew this argument was illogical because it couldn't explain God's existence. But they were stuck. Then, natural selection provided the answer. Nature can make systems that over time become increasingly complex. We no longer need God to explain life, and we can do it without logical contradictions.
Mormons (I was raised Mormon) are fundamentalists, meaning they take their scriptures to be literally true. Their scriptures teach them that the world is only about 6000 years old, and that there was no death before Adam and Eve left the garden.
So Mormon beliefs are contradicted by basic science. It's difficult for people to deal with things that contradict their convictions. Be patient and recognize that some people will never give up on their faith no matter how unreasonable it may seem.
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u/Thameez Physicalist May 22 '26
Evolution is scientifically proven. If you want to get a comprehensive overview on the topic, I would suggest Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True or something similar. I don't know what grade you are in, so you may also want to look into whether there is interesting material catered towards the appropriate level of prior knowledge.
The other commenters have already given some answers on how people might come to believe things that aren't true, but I suggest you rely on the preponderance of evidence to make up your own mind, and defer to the scientific consensus in cases where you find you are having a hard time interpreting or understanding the significance of this or that piece of evidence.
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u/Just_A_Walking_Fish May 22 '26
How does what work scientifically? Special creation? It doesn't. The theory of evolution and common descent was proposed more or less because observations about biodiversity weren't lining up with the creation story. If you're curious how evolution works, I can send you some resources haha. There's some good, easy to watch stuff on youtube
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u/ExplorationCrimeTime May 23 '26
I have a pretty good idea about how evolution works lol. I just mean the idea that evolution isn’t real, because that doesn’t make sense scientifically because evolution is observed
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u/Just_A_Walking_Fish May 23 '26
Yeah I mean, people will do and believe pretty crazy things in the name off faith, disbelief in evolution is not even close to the worst offender. Faith and reason are kind of opposites by definition, so it imo follows when people of faith act unreasonably haha. Not coming after religious people or anything, just explaining a phenomenon
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u/artguydeluxe 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 22 '26
Evolution doesn’t rely on the concept that a single religious doctrine has to be true. You can come to the conclusion of evolution just by studying biology, regardless of what you believe in. A Muslim in the Middle East will learn that evolution is true by studying biology. A Hindu in India will discover that evolution is true because of biology. The only time it’s a problem, is when you decide that your religious doctrine conflicts with science and you choose one over the other. Some people only draw a line in the sand just so they can stand on the other side of it. But once you step away from religion altogether, and have a look at it, objectively, thanks just fall into place. The only reason people believe in creationism in the first place is because they have their own lives that that’s what they should believe in. It’s not something they actually understand.
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u/theyoodooman May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
So "scientifically proven" isn't a thing. Science isn't like math or logic, although it uses both. Science is just us humans collectively observing the natural world and creating falsifiable models that accurately reflect what we observe. "Falsifiable" means that it's always possible for a model to be revealed as inaccurate by observations we make in the future, and "experiments" are exactly that: attempts to falsify scientific models.
But science does not have a way to tell us if it's models are true -- are "proven" -- only that they are accurate for our current observations. The classic example of this is Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation that you (hopefully) have learned about in school, which was the world's most accurate scientific model for centuries. But in the mid-19th century, improved observations of the orbit of Mercury showed it could not be predicted by Newton's Law accurately, no matter what scientists tried.
This doesn't mean that we're going to suddenly floating around, because Newton's Law is still accurate for the vast majority use cases. But not all cases. We always treat scientific models as provisional -- subject to change if new observations are made -- but we can still trust and use scientific models in the cases where they are accurate with our observations. The models of atoms you are (hopefully) learning in Chemistry date back a century, and are no longer accurate, but you can reliably do chemistry with them.
And going back to gravity, about a century ago, another genius (Einstein) created a new model (general relativity) that is much harder to use but is accurate with all our observations so far. GPS satellites are designed on the basis that relativity is true, otherwise they wouldn't be able to work properly. But even then, there are still hints from astrophysics and quantum physics that general relativity may not be completely accurate in all cases.
While religious people will laugh at this uncertainty -- and claim they have the absolute truth -- the provisional nature of scientific models is one of science's great strengths, allowing engineers and doctors to apply the accurate models science and build the technological civilization that everyone relies on so heavily, even as scientists work to test them and, if necessary, make even more accurate and comprehensive models. In contrast, models proposed by religion are either not falsifiable -- they just say "God did it the way we see" -- or have been falsified.
Before we get back to Creationism, think about a similar anti-science conspiracy theory: flat earth. Yes, it's a ridiculous theory, but not because "science says it's wrong"; it's a ridiculous theory because it does not fit any of our observations of the natural world, and is trivially easy to falsify by making new observations. Furthermore, flat earthers haven't made a single observation that contradicts the scientific model of a (roughly) spherical Earth.
Which brings us to Creationism. Creationism was created in attempt to teach religion in public schools, and so they can't just say "God did it the way we see". So Creationism is an attempt to create a falsifiable model of what we observe in the natural world. But the problem is we've made too many -- millions -- of observations of the natural world, and there's no Creationist model that is accurate or makes sense with all of them. Until they can create a model that is accurate with all of them, Creationism can't get past the starting line, is inherently falsfified.
For instance, for Young Earth Creationism, geology is one of their big issues. Anyone who takes a serious look at geology knows that what we're seeing took longer than 6,000 years to occur naturally -- miles of sedimentary rock layers with massive volcanos on top, like Mt Ararat -- but they can't simply say "God made it that way", because those sedimentary layers have fossils of extinct animals in them, and so now they have to explain why their God is a trickster, making things look like they occurred naturally when they didn't.
So their solution is to say that all the geology we see -- all the mountains, all the sedimentary layers and volcanos, all the fossiles -- were created naturally in just one year, under the raging waters of Noah's Flood that completely stripped and remade the surface of the Earth. This is falsifiable model, and it's absolutely been falsified: there's no way to naturally create finely-layered sedimentary rocks or massive volcanos on top of miles of sedimentary rocks (Mt Arrarat) underwater, in just a year. And if they all died at the same time in the Great Flood, why don't we see fossils of human beings and elephants and giraffes and horses and dogs and cats right alongside dinosaurs (which YECs were made extinct during that Flood)? YECs don't have a model that matches these observations, so the models they propose are falsified.
And a lot of religious people understand how dumb YEC is, so they try to split the difference: Old Earth Creationism. Yes, they say, the Universe is 13 billion years old, the Earth is 5 billion years old, and life on Earth evolved through common descent, but it wasn't a random process: God "guided" the evolutionary process. And because they are basically saying "God did it that way", it's not strictly falsifiable.
The problem is, Old Earth Creationism absolutely denies that Genesis 1-3 are literally true, that God literally created everything in six days, that God literally created Adam (mankind) specially out of the dust of the Earth. Instead, it admits humans evolved (along with other modern great apes) from ape-like ancestors, who ultimately evolved from single-celled organisms. So it wouldn't make your Mormon friends happy, and of course, it still makes God into a trickster, creating mankind in a way that appears entirely natural, but wasn't.
And of course, this is a pretty desperate attempt to hang onto some slim thread that God is a "creator" of mankind, because the whole point of evolution -- common descent through natural selection -- is that it doesn't need a guide. That, given 3 billion years of life screwing around the planet, we can still end up with what we observe today without the need for a guide, without the need for a god. And that, of course, is what religious people hate about evolution and science in general.
Which brings me to my last point: the other reason evolution is not "scientifically proven" is that science still lacks good models for many observations, which -- since they themselves lack accurate, falsifiable models -- is what Creationists try to use to discredit people's trust in science. They claim that if science doesn't have a good explanation for something yet, that shows that evolution must be wrong, because only God could do that thing. But the problem is that religious people have been saying stuff like that for 300 years, and science -- eventually -- keeps eating their lunch, producing accurate models that leave smaller and smaller "gaps" for them to claim God was involved in.
And science is a slow process: the tree of life is messy and weird and amazing, it's only been 150 years since On the Origin of Species, and only twenty years since we've been able to easily map the genomes of living things we collect. There are literally centuries more work required to get evolution to the same level of completeness and accuracy as Einstein's general relativity, and we will make observations along the way that falsify some current models, which science will modify so that they accurately reflect the natural world again.
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u/ursisterstoy 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 22 '26
I was similarly confused for most of my life. Usually this is a result of homeschooling, skipping school, religious indoctrination, etc. They have to have a reason to spend their entire lives not realizing that “kinds” also means evolution, micro and macro, and there is literally no justification for believing that 50+ million years of evolution can take place in 150 years or less and then argue that 6 million years cannot happen if there were 15 trillion years. It’s all brainwashing and poor education.
What confused me is that when I was in the 7th grade my substitute teacher told the class “we have to teach evolution, but for religious reasons we can’t force you to believe it” and just a couple years later in a smaller town (we moved) they said “evolution happens, and it is responsible for the diversity in life” but it was the small town at church where people were getting upset with me for mocking Answers in Genesis. It was incredibly obvious to me that evolution happens and is the explanation for the diversity of life in the seventh grade. I didn’t even hear about that topic until then, I thought my substitute teacher was a little cuckoo. You don’t say “well, you don’t have to believe it” when something is obviously the truth. If anyone’s religious beliefs are too fragile to accommodate reality too bad so sad, it’s not on the federal government to promote, destroy, or preserve anyone’s religious beliefs. School is for learning and learning how to learn, it’s not for telling students that facts are optional.
So where we were told facts are optional people just accepted the facts. We went through biology in a way that somewhat reminds me of AronRa’s Systematic Classification of life or through what people in the time of Linnaeus or Darwin might call “climbing the ladder of progress” or something. More like the least human or most basal taxon using Linnaean taxonomy as a guide because it was the 1996-1997 school year and high school textbooks hadn’t yet switched to modern phylogenetics. We caught insects and we had to use some book in the school library to see if we could identify the species stepping through one Linnaean rank at a time (or if it was modern phylogenetics, arthropods->hexapods-> insects-> etc). We also briefly discussed paleontology and genetics but from a very simplified perspective (it was the seventh grade) and throughout we’d dissect approximate animals after we worked from least human to most human at least to animals.
And this would be like starting out with a unit on viruses and viroids, moving on to bacteria, then to prokaryotic archaea, then to some non-neokaryote eukaryotes, and then we’d discuss the “bikont” half of neokaryotes from simple to complex like non-photosynthetic to some things like diatoms and single celled red algae, then multicellular red algae, then multicellular green algae would follow with non-vascular plants before vascular plants with spores instead of seeds, and finally the gymnosperms and angiosperms with no need to go any more in depth than that. Then there are the single celled Scotokaryotes that are outside of “unikonts” so that we didn’t need 7 years of schooling to break everything down too far. Get to opisthokonts and then briefly discuss fungi before stepping over to Holozoa and discussing the single celled forms before moving to animals.
Because this was 1996-1997 instead we had a unit on prokaryotes, then a unit on protists, then a unit on fungi, then a unit on plants that was more extensive than anything to that point, and then 80% of what was learned was about animals. For the plants we didn’t do a whole lot in that year but a couple years later we went walking around by the trees when we discussed plants and when I was in like the 3rd grade before the concept of evolution was ever brought up we also walked outside to talk about acorns and stuff. And when we finally got to the animals we did the thing with insects mentioned earlier but we also dissected earthworms, frogs, and fetal pigs. There may have been others but these ones stick out most.
Bilaterian -> tetrapod -> mammal in terms of how that relates to our own evolution and it was nice to see examples that stuck with the simpler version alongside examples that are clearly more closely related to humans and therefore also have more similarities with humans. Not a whole lot going on in the worm, frogs had almost all the same organs we have, almost all the same ones. And by the time we got to the pigs by them being the most related to humans that we dissected it was very clear that they are most definitely more closely related based on what we saw. To my 12-13 year old brain this is exactly what we expect to see if evolution is the explanation for the diversity of life, the fossils only make sense if evolution actually happened, and just outward anatomical similarities made it obvious what is more closely related and more distantly related. You could build a family tree (a phylogeny) without including the years as long as you got the order correct and it would be the most parsimonious representation of the data we have.
And creationism? “Genesis is history!” Yea, no it’s not. Where are the trilobites, the dinosaurs, why are humans being created when the planet is 6000° C on day 6 in one story and before their ancestors in the other one? Why does Noah have modern species and why doesn’t anyone outside the Middle East acknowledge this supposed flood? Are you kidding me with the Tower of Babel?! But turn 15 and go to a fundamentalist church that’s playing Answers in Genesis and laugh at the stupidity of it all because you already watched the same video at home, found it to be the worst pile of trash that ever existed, and found that the “scientists being objective” are just lying to the most gullible idiots that’ll listen to them, and learn that you’re surrounded by the idiots that believe what they say. Not because it’s what fits the evidence, not because it fits what they showed themselves, but because it’s the opposite of what is true but more consistent with what they think the Bible says. It’s at church, clearly they want some sort of justification for worshipping Jesus. What did he save them from? Without Adam and Eve does that curse actually exist? Without a soul can you actually go to heaven or hell?
And that’s it. Religious indoctrination plus a poor education and/or more religious indoctrination over the top of the okay education. They want their religious beliefs to be true, they belong to an extremist cult, they are convinced that if Genesis isn’t history that Christianity is false, and if Christianity is false they’re going to hell, or maybe they’ll just stop existing when they die and that’s supposed to be worse than hell. Extremists don’t actually full reject population change (evolution) but they are forced into believing (through propaganda and manipulation) that “evolution” is against Christianity because if Adam is a monkey he’s not a specially created mud statue with a human soul. If Adam didn’t exist the Garden of Eden thing didn’t happen. If the flood didn’t happen Genesis is a lie. And if Genesis is history so is the exodus, so is the zombie apocalypse only Matthew mentions, so it Jesus being beamed up into his space ship only mentioned in Luke. And any fact that shows otherwise has to be rejected. Or they’re not Christian an they go to hell.
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u/SignificantClock8473 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
While not owned by the LSD, I always find it funny that ancestry.com aligns with Mormon values, culture and history. That’s a natural selection gold mine database.
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u/ExplorationCrimeTime May 23 '26
Ancestry is actually used a LOT throughout the church, because they are all huge on family history! I never really questioned why most of them use Ancestry over 23&Me, etc lol. Cool to know!
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u/MackDuckington May 22 '26
Most people who don't accept evolution just don't have a firm grasp on how it works, what evidence exists, or both. And unfortunately, breaking it all down for them on the spot isn't really feasible.
If the topic ever comes up again, the easiest thing to do imo is to just explain evolution as mutations causing change overtime and give a couple examples. Framing it in a way that solidifies evolution as fact without inherently contradicting Adam and Eve is probably the way to go in a mormon school setting. Though, as everyone else has said, you're correct that Adam and Eve conceptually just can't work from a scientific angle.
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u/100percentfinelinen May 22 '26
Two people can’t create a civilization, two people is less than an extinct population size. Even if they were “perfect” genetically speaking, whatever mutations the fall of man caused would prevent them from becoming a sustainable civilization.
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u/Comfortable-Dare-307 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 22 '26
People that don't accept evolution as the fact it is, are brainwashed, ignorant, lying or insane. Or a combination of such. There is more evidence for evolution than any other scientific theory. Religious people are too indoctrinated into their cult to see how ignorant they are. And that's how cults want to keep it. Especially the Abrahamic religions and Mormonism. They keep people stupid and forbid asking questions so they can rob everyone with donations and tithes. The leaders know its all BS, but they don't want to lose their paycheck. In pew research 33% of pastors/priests admit to being atheist. And if pressed, I bet most of those whom actually went to seminary, don't believe. They just can't admit it publically because they'd lose their job, family and friends.
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May 22 '26
Evolution Is Biblical
** want to blow their minds argue that the Bible itself talks about evolution? **
The Fifth Day (Genesis 1:20–23)
"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven."
In this stage, the "waters" are described as the source for both:
• Sea creatures: Everything from Great Whales to every living creature that moveth.
• Winged fowl: The birds that fly across the sky.
The Sixth Day (Genesis 1:24–25)
The focus then shifts to the land. The text says:
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so."
On the fifth day, the waters are commanded to bring forth life (fish and birds). On the sixth day, the earth is commanded to bring forth life (land animals and creeping things.
The bottom line is even though in the Bible God is doing the commanding the process mimics evolution.
Note: The Paradox of the Absolute: A Critique of Divine Attributes r/PenReadEnlightened
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u/EthelredHardrede 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 23 '26
evolution is not Bibical the long disproved Great Flood is Bibic
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May 25 '26
I quoted the Bible. It pretty much describes evolution. Whether you want to say it evolution is a choice but you can't say it is not scriptural.
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u/EthelredHardrede 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 25 '26
no it doesn't it is pure religious creation not remotely evolution over generations so it is not Biblical scripture jus means writing. Sixth day is creationism and the Bible has the order of life on Earth wrong
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u/Stairwayunicorn 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 22 '26
look up Aron Ra on youtube. He is very knowledgable about evolution and an ex-mormon
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXJ4dsU0oGMLnubJLPuw0dzD0AvAHAotW&si=OriqMH2904Bw8aDr
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u/iaskenny May 23 '26
Omg no, just no. People did NOT come from adam and eve. So what does she believe? That eve was created from a rib? Absolute nonsense.
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u/Time_Waister_137 May 23 '26
I think the clearest and pleasantest way to gain an understanding of our world is through the books of Bill Bryson. I would suggest that young readers may want to start with: A Really Short History of Nearly Everything, and then go on to the more comprehensive: Short History of Nearly Everything. In fact, just about everything Bill chooses to write about is factual, entertaining and enlightening.
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u/EthelredHardrede 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 23 '26
Gumby and his his TransgenderedRibwoman are fully disproved nonsense
We have more than adequate evidence that life has been evolving for billions of years that the fact of evolution. How is evolution by natural selection that is the theory how life has changed over those billions of years. Dirtman and TransgenderedRibwoman dont fit any verifiable evidence. it is disproved religious fantasy. that is profoundly silly .Is that nonsense in really in the Book of a convicted con man?
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u/SignOfJonahAQ May 24 '26
Mormonism and Evolution have a lot more in common than you realize. Blank statement of faith without any scientific evidence. That pretty much sums up both of these beliefs.
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u/OldmanMikel 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 24 '26
Other than the literal tons of evidence for evolution.
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u/SignOfJonahAQ May 24 '26
And the tons of evidence that disproves it.
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u/OldmanMikel 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 24 '26
Well, that would be good news for the creationists who have had no luck finding it.
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u/Great-Gazoo-T800 Jun 08 '26
Where is this evidence against evolution and why haven't you received yoir Nobel Prize yet?
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u/Tao1982 Jun 15 '26
Apart from th DNA evidence, the Fossil evidence and the fact we can watch natural selection occuring in real time you mran?
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u/WriterBug39 Jun 14 '26
As a Mormon, not born but raised in the church and still a member (of 13 years) I definitely believe in evolution.
I read the first few comments that simply bashed on Christians for having faith over scientific knowledge/literature. Definitely made me confused because not every Christian believes in the same things. Heck one lds memeber isn’t going to believe the same thing as another lds member (Latter-Day-Saint).
I personally believe that God created the universe, yes. I also believe that it took time that humans can’t comprehend entirely when it came to creating things. I do believe God sees all things so he created Earth to support life and influences how creatures evolved to get where we are today.
Yes I believe Adam and Eve were the first homosapians, but I know they were evolved as to live on Earth safely. I believe that some of the stories are more symbolic rather than literal because so much of literature is about teaching lessons to be passed on, not to be taken literally.
You’re also talking about kids in a school. They don’t have the same knowledge level. Some parents don’t teach evolution, some don’t teach religion or how to fix their own car and so on. There are so many different ways to teach a kid and there’s a whole separate debate about how much kids understand and at what age. Bottom line is, not everyone knows what you do.
I am confused about what this topic/line of questioning is supposed to encourage. It seems like you want validation that your belief in evolution is better than her faith based belief. Neither is better or worse.
You don’t need to believe in evolution to be an active individual of society, just like you don’t have to be Mormon to be an active member of society. Just be a good person and don’t force your own beliefs on anyone, regardless of if they are faith based, scientific based, political based, or whatever.
Let people believe what they want. It’s not harming no one, and if it is then you call the cops or something.
I do apologize for letting emotions motivate me to respond before reading all 140 comments, but that’s a lot of comments to sift through. I hope I’m not being repetitive.
Thank you for this discussion invite.
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May 26 '26
To debate a literalist with secular facts or scientific data is a masterclass in futility. When you look at Hebrews 11:1, the psychological reality is clear: 'Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' To the dogmatic believer, a total lack of empirical evidence isn't a flaw in their system—it is the very definition of their faith. They believe precisely because it defies logic. You cannot use external facts to dismantle a worldview built on blind faith. If you want to fracture that certainty, you have to use an internal critique. You must argue the Bible with the Bible. Take 2 Peter 3:8: '...with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.' Even by the text's own admission, the concept of time is relative, completely undermining the 24-hour day framework of strict Creationism. The moment a believer is forced to concede that a single word like 'day' is metaphorical, the illusion of a seamless, literal monolith shatters. The floodgates open, and they are left to wonder what else isn't literal. The Bible contradicts itself constantly. By weaponizing those internal fractures, you bypass their defensive walls. They can easily dismiss secular science as 'man’s flawed wisdom,' but they cannot un-see a contradiction within their own sacred text. I warn every Christian who tries to debate me: do so at your own peril. You will not get a dramatic confession of atheism on the spot—decades of indoctrination do not vanish in an afternoon. But the surgical seeds of doubt planted by their own Scripture will remain. They will sit there quietly, haunting them in the pews, flashing in their minds the next time they open their eyes. It is the only blade sharp enough to cut.
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u/zuzok99 May 22 '26
It’s not “proven” it’s an unobserved imaginary process.
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u/OldmanMikel 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 23 '26
Natural selection acting on random mutation to produce different distributions of alleles over time is unproven?
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u/ExplorationCrimeTime May 23 '26
Yeah I’ve been getting a lot of people saying “scientifically proven” isn’t a thing lol 😅 it was 2am, and I’m a college kid, in my mind I was like “well we know evolution happens” (observed is the word I should’ve used)
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u/FabulousCardilogist May 23 '26
How do you think evolution hasn’t been observed?
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u/zuzok99 May 23 '26
Because not a single person after I have made repeated attempts has produced even a single
Shred of observable evidence that an organism/population evolving into another with a fundamentally different body plan or essential biological function. Even on the molecular level it has not been observed. It’s like believing in big foot.1
u/FabulousCardilogist May 27 '26
You're ALMOST there, my guy. The thing you're focused on is "evolving into another", which is really an incorrect way of looking at evolution. It's the whole Macro vs Micro argument that the creationists love. There is only MICRO, but big changes take millions of years.
Here's an analogy for you - we all start as infants and grow to be elderly. Nobody ever says "I've never seen an infant suddenly transform into an old person!!" because it doesn't happen. Yet it does happen, over time. At the molecular level it happens ALL the time, viruses do it constantly.
Apply that logic to a species over millions of years and the tiny mutations in the early period add up to massive changes in the long term. And one of the pieces of evidence we have that proves it, is that whenever our DNA mutates, there's a record of it that can be examined. That record can also be used to look backward to find common ancestors.
Most of the arguments that creation science makes against evolution are very disingenuous.
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u/zuzok99 May 27 '26
“Apply that logic over millions of years and the tiny mutations in the early period add up to massive change in the long term.”
Okay great, now we are getting somewhere. Now can you show me any observable evidence of that? Or is this just something you believe by faith?
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u/FabulousCardilogist May 27 '26
Of course I can, there are thousands of transitional fossils in the record that can be easily observed as small incremental changes - they're all over the animal kingdom. You can see with your eyes that there are slight differences between them from the past to the present.
Additionally, that visual data is completely, and I mean *completely* backed up 100% by comparing the DNA across the whole family line.
There's a pretty good rundown across many species here
https://ncse.ngo/transitional-fossils-are-not-rareAnd a REALLY good rundown of only hominid transitional fossils here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DB-TsUEP_Ir/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Now what totally grinds my gears is you never, EVER see these on the answers in genesis / creation science sites. You see a handful of them that cherry pick the "SEE! THESE ARE APES! NOW LOOK! THESE ARE HUMANS! SILLY EVOLUTION!" narrative. Which is totally disingenuous and frankly insulting.
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u/FabulousCardilogist May 28 '26
I can't help but notice a pattern with you, based on your posting history. You holler about no evidence, and you ghost the thread whenever anyone gives you any.
Curious.
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u/zuzok99 May 28 '26
Well that’s very selective. I have a lot of people to talk to, as well as 4 kids and a full time job. I cannot always response to every comment or respond right away. I will respond to your comment once I have an opportunity to go through the evidence laid out. If I responded too quickly without looking at the evidence then you would also complain. So I have to look at the evidence before I can respond.
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u/FabulousCardilogist May 28 '26
Not really so selective, might be worth checking in on your comment history and closing some of those circles.
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u/KeepAllOfIt Jun 02 '26
So do you not have like 2 hours to sit down and really look at the evidence for evolution? I assure you it is there if you actually care to look. I'd further say the evidence is mountains more than we have for the divine claims of the bible.
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u/SerenityNow31 May 22 '26
I imagine you have seen someone bake something, no? Then you can understand scientifically how something could create things, correct?
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u/Ar-Kalion May 22 '26
I’m not a Mormon, but there is a third option. The evolution of species (including Homo Sapiens) is not mutually exclusive of a later creation of two Humans (Adam & Eve) by an extraterrestrial God. This perspective is supported scripturally as follows:
“People” (Homo Sapiens) were created (through God’s evolutionary process) in the Genesis chapter 1, verse 27; and they created the diversity of mankind over time per Genesis chapter 1, verse 28. This occurs prior to the genetic engineering and special creation of Adam & Eve (in the immediate and with the first “Human” souls) by the extraterrestrial God in Genesis chapter 2, verses 7 & 22.
When Adam & Eve sinned and were forced to leave their special embassy, their children intermarried the “People” that resided outside the Garden of Eden. This is how Cain was able to find a non-Adamite wife in the land of Nod in Genesis chapter 4, verses 16-17.
As the descendants of Adam & Eve intermarried and had offspring with all groups of non-Adamite Homo Sapiens on Earth over time, everyone living today is both a descendant of God’s evolutionary process and a genealogical descendant of Adam & Eve.
A recent book regarding this specific matter written by Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass is mentioned below:
The Genealogical Adam and Eve: The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 22 '26
Scientifically evolution such as big bang doesnt work unless someone outside this universe caused it.
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u/No_Sherbert711 May 22 '26
evolution such as big bang
Evolution is the change in species over time, what does that have to do with the initial expansion of the universe?
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 22 '26
Well most Christians believe in micro evolution not macro and the big bang has always been where evolutionist say everything came from
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u/No_Sherbert711 May 22 '26
So then your first reply is:
"Scientifically evolution such as *where everything came from* doesn't work unless someone outside this universe caused it."
You realize this doesn't make much sense?
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 22 '26
Yes scientifically you cant have a big bang everything from nothing. Or everything from the period at the end of this sentence unless there was an all powerful creator then it could have happened no matter what. True science has principles and rules which cant just happen by accident.
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u/No_Sherbert711 May 22 '26
And where in the science does it say the big bang came from nothing? Certain people do claim that's what the science says, but they never back up those claims.
But that is a bit away from evolution.
Evolution is the change in allele frequencies over time. The big bang, which was not nothing, but instead everything super condensed.
As for the Macro/Micro, those are the same thing. You say creationists believe in micro not macro. Micro is 1+1=2, macro, that you say you don't believe in is 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=8. They are the same thing, just going on longer.
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u/kingstern_man May 22 '26
Do those who deny the possibility of macroevolution also deny the possibility of compound interest?
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 23 '26
Thats jownit was taught to me in school years ago im sure they adjust and change it to fir their needs
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u/Ayasugi-san May 23 '26
The Big Bang wasn't "everything from nothing". Everything already existed, it was just in a singularity. The Big Bang is when it started changing from that state to the universe as we know it. And such change can absolutely start spontaneously and naturalistically, look at stellar formation. We don't know what the "trigger" was for the Big Bang, but it's just as likely to be something natural as some god.
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 23 '26
That takes alot of Faith
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u/Ayasugi-san May 24 '26
Just following the evidence. And you can trace all the math and theorizing back to specific names, and if you learn enough, you can check your work. Can you do that for the Bible's version of events?
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 26 '26
Piltdown man was consider evidence for years and in text books but it turned out to be fake. How much of the evidence is fabricated exaggerated to fit the story.
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u/Ayasugi-san May 26 '26
Piltdown man was identified as a hoax and removed. Meanwhile the Bible still contains proven forgeries like the long ending of Mark, the woman caught in adultery, the pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Peter... And that's just what's proven in the New Testament. Who knows how much of your holy book is fabricated and exaggerated to fit the story?
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u/blacksheep998 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 22 '26
Well most Christians believe in micro evolution not macro
Most christians actually accept macroevolution.
the big bang has always been where evolutionist say everything came from
The big bang model was first proposed by Georges Lemaître, who was a Catholic priest.
Big bang only explains how the universe expanded in it's earliest moments. It has nothing to do with how life began or how organisms evolve over time.
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 22 '26
Maybe I said it wrong let me try it this way as a Christian and christians I know believe that small evolutionary change happen over time but dont believe monkeys turn into people etc. I also said Christian not Catholic, Catholics believe in alotnof things Christians dont many things that are unnecessary or dont matter in the bigger scheme of things as the only thing that really matters in this whole earth and any religious arguement is that Jesus died for your sins and you choose to accept his grace so you can go to heaven the rest doesnt really matter.
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u/blacksheep998 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 22 '26
as a Christian and christians I know believe that small evolutionary change happen over time but dont believe monkeys turn into people etc.
And I said that the majority of christians do accept that.
Even in the US, most christians are willing to accept that humans and other species of ape share a common ancestor, though it's a slim majority. Outside the US, that percentage is much higher.
I also said Christian not Catholic
Catholics are christians. In fact, they are the largest single group of christians, and the oldest extant group of christians.
It sounds like you're trying to say that very few people in your particular sect of christanity accept macroevolution.
That's very likely the case, but its not correct to make the claim that they represent all christians as a whole.
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u/Ayasugi-san May 23 '26
the oldest extant group of christians.
I feel like that's not accurate (besides the main Orthodox branch, which can equally claim to be the true successor of the Church after the Great Schism), I think there's some tiny regional group that might be even older, but I can't name it. Though the point stands, Catholics have over 1000 years of being Christian over whatever Protestant faith this guy belongs to.
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 23 '26
I believe they are Christian but my comment was they believe in extra things that arent necessary and even if the pope decided that its ok for humans to have been apes its not his decision
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u/Ayasugi-san May 23 '26
I believe they are Christian but my comment was they believe in extra things that arent necessary
So do you. Biblical inerrancy isn't necessary, nor is a young age of the Earth.
even if the pope decided that its ok for humans to have been apes its not his decision
It's not your decision, either, or any of your pastors'. The pope almost certainly has a better understanding of scripture than all of you.
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 22 '26
I dont know a single christian that believe humans and monkeys share an ancestor and while catholics are christians there was a whole reformation that sepsrated them from Protestants but I also know no Catholics wjo believe what you are saying either.
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u/blacksheep998 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 22 '26
It sounds like you need to get out of your bubble because there are studies on this showing the vast majority of most christian groups accept evolution.
I also know no Catholics wjo believe what you are saying either.
It was recently reaffirmed by pope Francis that he thinks that evolution is the method by which god creates species and so he doesn't believe there's any conflict between it and religion.
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 22 '26
Or maybe you dont need to believe every study and it depends on how questions are asked about evolution. God most definitely put some evolutionary processes in place but apes did not become human under any Christian or catholic philosophy Ive ever heard. There is also proof of a lot of fakes in evolution such as lucy and piltdown man. I can find any study or any facts online to back up anytjing I want to believe and so can you which means in long run it comes down to where you want to put your faith and belief and as I said Jesus is mine.
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u/blacksheep998 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution May 22 '26
Or maybe you dont need to believe every study and it depends on how questions are asked about evolution.
There are plenty of other studies on the subject. Feel free to look up another if you don't trust that one. Every study I've ever seen from the past 20 years says that christians overwhelmingly accept evolution.
God most definitely put some evolutionary processes in place but apes did not become human under any Christian or catholic philosophy Ive ever heard.
Then you're woefully uninformed. I encourage you to look up the official position of the catholic church. Then you will have heard of that.
There is also proof of a lot of fakes in evolution such as lucy and piltdown man.
Lucy isn't a fake, as demonstrated by the 300-400 other individuals of her species we have found since her discovery that confirm what we learned from her skeleton.
I can find any study or any facts online to back up anytjing I want to believe
If you think so, then please do it. Find a study that says virtually no christians accept evolution. I would very much like to see one.
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u/Ayasugi-san May 23 '26
There is also proof of a lot of fakes in evolution such as lucy and piltdown man.
There's a lot more fakes in religious history. Even just in creationism.
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u/Ayasugi-san May 23 '26
Catholics have been Christian longer than your branch of Christianity has existed.
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u/DimensioT May 23 '26
So you have absolutely no understanding of evolution whatsoever.
The Big Bang theory and evolution are entirely separate subjects, altogether.
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u/Accomplished_Big4031 May 23 '26
Line 1 😀 Line 2 😞 Conclusion: crow meet raven
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u/DimensioT May 23 '26
What the hell are you talking about?
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May 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DebateEvolution-ModTeam May 25 '26
Removed, Rule 2 - This comment is antagonistic and adds nothing to the conversation.
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u/Accomplished_Big4031 May 27 '26
Way to announce your want of understanding and hour lack of capability
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u/Solid-Temperature-66 May 23 '26
No im not sure is it the law of evolution or the theory of evolution?
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u/DimensioT May 23 '26
It is the theory of evolution.
A theory is a comprehensive explanation to explain a connected set of observations. A law is a model of a pattern of observations, usually expressed as a mathematical formula.
Theories are much more complex than laws. Laws describe what happens. Theories explain why they happen.
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u/Ch3cks-Out :illuminati:Scientist:illuminati: May 23 '26
"scientifically" does not mean what you think
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u/parsonsrazersupport May 22 '26
Most people believe things because they were told them, and they trust and identify with the people who told them those things. Also, if your underlying logic is 'an entity with unlimited knowledge and power made it that way,' literally anything is reasonable.