12-15-2008, 11:47 PM
Typical to West Michigan, I was raised in an overwhelmingly religious upbringing. Went to a Christian/private school until high school and belonged to a Baptist (most around here are RCA or CRC, but still..) church most of my life. It shapes my views and attitudes, but I'm not nearly as fundamental about it as a lot of people. I do believe in God.. I just have questions about the dogmatic ideas involved with everything. When I began going to a public school and being exposed to a more secular society, I began having a lot more questions.. some that my parents couldn't even give a satisfactory answer to. So I do have faith in God, I just don't agree with everything the church does or all of their stances.
As for evolution, it's completely possible to believe in evolution if you believe in God and/or intelligent design. Not the whole "Man descends from apes" theory, but the evolution of animals and yes, even humans as time passes. Hell, we've found skulls and bones differently shaped than ours, but human.. Kinda hard to ignore that. Darwin's observations of the finches on Galapagos are concrete proof that animals do adapt to their environment, changing physical features from their predecessors. Kinda hard to ignore that, too.
The "all or nothing" idea just depends on how much faith you have, and how closely you choose to follow biblical principles and commands. To each his own, I guess. I could expound on all this, I guess, but it's late and I'm lazy. So that's my long-winded reply.
As for evolution, it's completely possible to believe in evolution if you believe in God and/or intelligent design. Not the whole "Man descends from apes" theory, but the evolution of animals and yes, even humans as time passes. Hell, we've found skulls and bones differently shaped than ours, but human.. Kinda hard to ignore that. Darwin's observations of the finches on Galapagos are concrete proof that animals do adapt to their environment, changing physical features from their predecessors. Kinda hard to ignore that, too.
The "all or nothing" idea just depends on how much faith you have, and how closely you choose to follow biblical principles and commands. To each his own, I guess. I could expound on all this, I guess, but it's late and I'm lazy. So that's my long-winded reply.
Where would we be without the agitators of the world attaching the electrodes of knowledge to the nipples of ignorance?