Faith After Darwin in Kenneth Essay

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If there is evolution, then God does not exist. If God exists, then scientific theories such as evolution are immaterial or even nonexistent. However, there is a way to understand God even in a world where Darwin's theory of evolution is correct. In his book, Miller quotes the National Academy of Sciences. They stated:

At the root of the apparent conflict between some religious and evolution is a misunderstanding of the critical difference between religious and scientific ways of knowing. Religions and science answer different questions about the world. Whether there is a purpose to the universe or a purpose for human existence are not questions for science. Religious and scientific ways of knowing have played, and will continue to play, significant roles in human history (Miller 2007,-page 169).

This statement is essentially correct. For most of the questions that people have to ask, the answers can be found in either the field of science or in the realm of the religious. However, there is some overlap as in the case of evolution because it poses the question about how life on earth began. Some would say that either creatures were created by evolution started by the Big Bang or that intelligent design by an all-knowing all-powerful God created us all. There is a way where both could be the case. If the creatures of the world started as amoebas, one could argue that something very powerful had to start that process. Some entity, something had to start the ball rolling. In this area is where we can reconcile the existence of evolution and the existence of God.

In his text, Keith Miller makes many interesting proposals and attempts to deliver them in a way which is most palatable to two groups of people who tend to not want to listen to viewpoints which are different from their own. He seems to be more persuasive in his attempts to convert the religious minded and there is a definite attitude that it is they who are the least reasonable of the factions and this may be the case but it is obvious that there is a slight bias in this matter even as he claims to be evenly straddling the issue.
Scientific inquiry has shown that some of the beliefs of the Christian religion simply could not be accurate. We can fairly certainly rule out intelligent design as it was originally written. The presence of dinosaur bones, of other humanoids, and of definite eras of animal life are strong indicators which show that God did not just one day create Homo sapiens and tigers and fish out of the thin air. The fossil record cannot be denied except by those that choose to be ignorant, which unfortunately many still choose. Miller presents this to the religious minded in a way that he hopes is reasonable enough and logical enough that it can be accepted while not forcing a person to completely relinquish their preconceptions.

When Miller does turn his attention to the promotion of the religious and the chastisement of the scientific, he focuses on the way scientists not only negate the religious ideas of intelligent design and Creationism, but also deny all components of the religious belief. By discounting the religious view, it is as if the scientific community feels they have to discount the opposition's whole worldview. Many rebuttals from the scientific viewpoint support atheism or agnosticism. While the religious perspective deals specifically with the issue of evolution and how creatures adapt or not, the scientists tend to discredit everything the religious people believe. These kinds of attacks do not lend to successful conversion of a person's perspective, but instead galvanizes their opposition and further cements the divide between the two groups.

Works Cited

Miller, K. (2007). Finding Darwin's God: a scientist's search for common ground between God and evolution. (pp. 129-292). New….....

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