Evangelical Scientists Debate Creation Story

Hugh Pickens writes "Polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center find that four out of 10 Americans believe humanity descend from Adam and Eve, but NPR reports that evangelical scientists are now saying publicly that they can no longer believe the Genesis account and that it is unlikely that we all descended from a single pair of humans. 'That would be against all the genomic evidence that we've assembled over the last 20 years so not likely at all,' says biologist Dennis Venema, a senior fellow at BioLogos Foundation, a Christian group that tries to reconcile faith and science. 'You would have to postulate that there's been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time. Those types of mutation rates are just not possible. It would mutate us out of existence.' Venema is part of a growing cadre of Christian scholars who say they want their faith to come into the 21st century and say it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence."

Comments

Re:Science vs Religion: Contradictions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Evangelical Christians believe they have been reborn and saved by Jesus and it's there duty to spread the word. Fundamentalists Christians believe in the literal interpretation of the bible as being absolute (despite over a thousand years of modifications, but I digress). You can be an Evangelical Christian and believe in Evolution. You just can't be an Evangelical-Fundamentalist Christian and believe in evolution.

Re:Science vs Religion: Contradictions?

[bmo]

>Only a very small fraction of Christians - even evangelical Christians - insist on taking every word of the Bible literally.

Between 40-50% of adults in the United States say they believe in YEC, depending on the poll.[7] According to a Gallup poll in December 2010, around 40% of Americans believe in YEC, with 52% among Republicans and 34% among Democrats. The percentage falls quickly as the level of education increasesâ"only 22% of respondents with postgraduate degrees believed compared with 47% of those with a high school education or less.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism

PRINCETON, NJ -- About one-third of the American adult population believes the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word. This percentage is slightly lower than several decades ago. The majority of those Americans who don't believe that the Bible is literally true believe that it is the inspired word of God but that not everything it in should be taken literally. About one in five Americans believe the Bible is an ancient book of "fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/27682/onethird-americans-believe-bible-literally-true.aspx

1/3 of the US are literalists. That's not a small number. And they are motivated.

And they are telling you and me that we are going to Hell.

--
BMO

Re:Any Rabbi worth his salt could have told them.

[spiffmastercow]

Except that the Jews are our elders in the faith of Isaac and Abraham.

So, they'll make it to heaven with you? Even though they don't believe Jesus Christ is Lord?

That's a prevailing belief among many Christians.. The explanation I was given was that the Jews are grandfathered in under the old contract, so long as they kill and burn a lamb every now and again. But anyone just joining has to go under the new contract, which involves swearing fealty to Jesus and taking a bath.