Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Evolution Requires Faith

       Many people consider creation/biblical Christianity to be a "faith position", however I see all philosophical (i.e. dealing with origins, existence, etc..) viewpoints as "faith positions" to some degree. You may disagree with my perspective on that. Obviously some religions are much more faith based than others (i.e. Solipsism). In my opinion: a biblical worldview and any worldview that incorporates evolution and long ages, both require faith to some degree. Both views use the same evidence (or lack there of), with different interpretations, to draw their conclusions. Neither worldview can reproduce the origins of life on-demand in a laboratory to support their views. Every time there is a gap in evidence and extrapolation, projections, reasoning, guessing, or anything along those lines is used to explain what happened, then faith is necessary for the listening party to accept the view of the person making the statement.

      For example: One might read a book about two fossils that are similar, but different. The supposed changes that took place between those fossils is not recorded in the fossil record, but the book will probably still assert that there were transitional forms between those two fossils that we do not have records of. Depending on your worldview, one may consider this logical or reasonable to make this connection, however if the reader accepts this as true they are showing faith that the book is true even when it lacks the evidence to back up the claim. Science in general treats the word faith as a dirty word, however we all use faith every day.

 The real question is not which worldview requires faith. The real question should be which worldview uses faith in a reasonable, rational, logical, coherent, consistent, and realistic way.  I posit that the biblical worldview does this better than any other worldview.

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