Can you be an evolutionist and christian?

I was sitting in a yahoo pool room late one night and someone comes out of nowhere and goes do you guys believe in evolution.....he said i do.....then someone asked his religion and he said christain....

I mean im christian and i have my own theories but is this a paradox or can you be an evolutionist christian?

 

It depends on whose opinions you want to believe, what branch of Christianity you follow, etc. If you take the Bible completely literally, then no, you can't. Taken literally, the Bible makes the earth out to be around 6,000 years old, whereas evolution requires millions of years to take place. If you believe in the Bible as all or mostly metaphors, then you can. Even if all that you leave to being a metaphor is the age of the early men, and in turn, the age of the earth, then evolution is compatible. All evolution explains is the diversity of species. Of course if you get into human evolution, you step into somewhat of a taboo zone, but the rest can be accepted readily. People will try to convince you that you can't because they say that life was created and did not spontaneously form. This is just a straw man argument because abiogenesis for one, doesn't explain how life came about, only how organic compounds were able to form in the atmosphere of the early earth, and two, biological evolution and abiogenesis are different theories all together. With all that said, logically you can believe in both unless you're specific sect forbids it I guess.

 

I was sitting and thinking a few night ago about that and i came up with this theory.....

I believe that the bible has made an error in the date of the earth...i believe that god made a primitave form of man and allowed them to evolve to the men we are today....

And i belive that Adam and Eve were not the only humans on earth when god created it... i belive that they were the only ones in the Garden Of Eden....

But i mean thats just a theory....

 

Well technically the Bible can't have an error and be believed. It is supposedly the inherent word of God, and the word of an infallible being must be infallible. If there is an error in one part, then the rest has no reason to exist. As far as other humans being created, it had to have happened. When Cain killed Abel, God supposedly put a mark on him so that when he wandered around he would not be killed. Who was there to kill him? The only people spoke of up to that point were Adam, Eve, Seth, Cain (dead), and whatever the daughter's name was. This leads me to believe that either:
1. There were more humans created, which makes passages in the Bible saying that only men born of Adam can be saved and ones that say anyone who calls on the name of Christ will be saved contradict each other.
2. There was no one else but the latter persons to kill Cain as he wandered, but if I'm not mistaken he was forced to wander away from the land of his parents, which would make no sense.

 

No, for very obvious reasons. They both completely contradict each other.

 

It depends.. If you think god CREATED the first thing that something started evolving from, then I don't see why not?

 

There is a line and thats a fine line, but someone could believe that the earth has evolved a bit but not as the Full evolutionists believe.

 

Yes, but technically, the Bible wasn't written in English. It was written in some dead language, which has been translated by humans, who aren't omnipotent like this supposed "god".

It's not inconceivable that it was a simple translation error which has caused so much fuzz.

 

I think I pretty much just explained that in most situations you can. Care to expound on your view?

People can read the Old Testament in Hebrew and get the exact same message out of it. If God was really a loving God and wanted his people to know his message, he would allow them to translate it correctly.

 

Some people's bibles are different. Some text can vary from others in some cases. The original bible is the word of god. The Old Jewish testament and Quran were never changed.

 

Nope, because then they would contredict each other.

 

It's mainly the Protestant Christians who believe in evolution.