Christian Darwinism: not an oxymoron
There’s a NY Times article about a Christian, Michael Dowd, who discovered Darwin’s theory of evolution, and now he goes around preaching evolution to Christians.
A big part of Dowd’s philosophy is about how “evolutionary psychology might help people overcome guilt about their immoral or unhealthful behaviors.” Liberals absolutely hate evolutionary psychology because it reveals truths about humanity that conflict with their liberal Creationsism. Finding morality in evolution reminds me or Raymond B. Cattell’s Beyondism, a philosophy believed by liberals to be racist.
This gives me hope that, in the future, the Christians will be on the side of Darwin, and the liberals will be calling evolution racist pseudoscience.
"This gives me hope that, in the future, the Christians will be on the side of Darwin, and the liberals will be calling evolution racist pseudoscience."
How about we ALL grow up and accept evolution as the truth. I don't care who believes what, as long as people embrace the fact that we are descended from lower animals.
We can then ascend to higher (more intelligent) beings.
Posted by: Superman | June 17, 2008 at 10:54 AM
Christians have believed in evolution for a while now - the Vatican has declared that evolution is not incompatible with Christian teaching. Some Protestants haven't figured this out yet, and I'm not sure what's such the big deal about a protestant realizing this.
Posted by: Anthony | June 17, 2008 at 10:54 AM
Some Protestants haven't figured this out yet, and I'm not sure what's such the big deal about a protestant realizing this.
I think many are big-time "literalists." Why liberals accept evolution being responsible for everything except IQ differences between races is the real mystery.
Posted by: | June 17, 2008 at 01:02 PM
Oh but it is a big deal. I'm in the Dowd camp. For an evangelical to understand that evolution is a fact allows one to quickly shed most of the beliefs of right-liberalism that so plague modern American Christendom. HS's hope, then, is far from misplaced.
Posted by: DiverCity | June 17, 2008 at 03:57 PM
Outside of American fundamentalists, almost every Christian accepts evolution. Fundamentalists are definitely loud, but they account for well less than a fifth of the world's Christians. Maybe less than a tenth.
Posted by: Joshua Holmes | June 17, 2008 at 08:22 PM
Would that this were true. Unfortunately, as Paul Bloom has demonstrated, people are natural born creationists, and religion is always going to be a place that caters to this inborn bias. Note that creationism tends to pop up even in places like Italy where the traditional religion has accepted Darwinian evolution.
Posted by: Thursday | June 17, 2008 at 10:30 PM
Christians have believed in evolution for a while now - the Vatican has declared that evolution is not incompatible with Christian teaching.
Fundamentalists don't consider Catholics to be Christian.
Fundamentalists are definitely loud, but they account for well less than a fifth of the world's Christians. Maybe less than a tenth.
Fundamentalist Christianity is growing at an explosive rate, while the Catholic and mainstream Protestant churches are stagnating at best and in many cases declining rapidly.
Posted by: Peter | June 17, 2008 at 11:41 PM
"Fundamentalists don't consider Catholics to be Christian": well neither do I, and I'm one of the atheists in a family of Atheists, Protestants and Papists. (Or, if you prefer, Atheists, Reformers and Roman Catholics.)
Posted by: dearieme | June 18, 2008 at 08:05 AM
We apply both Catholicism and Beyondism in Evolutionary Catholicism. Here is our blog.
http://civilizingthebeast.blogspot.com/
Posted by: K.L.Anderson | June 18, 2008 at 01:48 PM