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I have just discovered that a good friend of mine does not believe in Evolution. Now I'm trying to figure out how to go about it. I'm a very tolerant person and I believe you have the right to your beliefs. But at the same time, ignoring scientific fact and mountains of evidence for an outdated myth seems dangerous and destructive.

In my situation, would you confront him or let him keep his faith?

I would confront him with the facts. To let him know that evolution does exist. Tell him different theories etc.

Do this by not completely changing his beliefs, but to let him know that there's more than what he currently thinks.

Rommaster wrote:I would confront him with the facts

Rommaster wrote:To let him know that evolution does exist

Well, those two things contradict

I'd let him believe what he wamts to. Chances are, he's already been made aware of the facts of evolution; and has made a choice to ignore it.

Let him beleive what he wants but present your thoughts aswel, don't try and push your beleives though. Faith in whatever can give people alot of strength (and it can fuck people up but thats a different discussion).

Most likely like Will said he knows how science sees things and choses to stick with his faith, its his own choice/beleive, let him have it. A good friend of mine is a strong beleiver in God, we have discussions all the time where my oppinion conflicts with his (I don't beleive) however, the topics are discusable, same would go for you, the topic should be discusable but please be carefull and don't force up the other your beleives, you should be good for some fun/imformative discussions then.

I think it depends on what you mean by evolution. The theory itself is pretty straighforward and obvious. In a given system with reproducing things, they will tend to develop traits that promote more reproduction. There are many examples of this in real life. For example malaria has evolved immunities to the drugs that used to kill it.

There are a couple of problems though. First, many people evolution and inteligent design are mutually exclusive. It's not. For example, the progress for the steam boat to the V5 rocket is an example of evolution. But both came from something much more complex and beautiful: the human mind.

Another problem is that evolution has become a favourite for philosophers to hijack. The Naturalists made up a version to support naturalism, the Positivists made up a version to support positivism, and I won't even start with the sociologists.

If you're trying to sell him somthing more than a biological pattern that might explain his pensiveness.

Disclamer: I am a Christian

Heikanu wrote:

Rommaster wrote:I would confront him with the facts

Rommaster wrote:To let him know that evolution does exist

Well, those two things contradict

And why is that? Evolution = fact. So, no it doesn't contradict.

I`ve learnt on biologie this year that evelution exist...like it or not....if not -whow do we appeared...monkey=>something else=>human=> something more inteligent. This is the path of human`s evelution ...That we don`t see- don`t believe in it ..but it is existing, like it or not ...

uzunov wrote:I`ve learnt on biologie this year that evelution exist...like it or not....if not -whow do we appeared...monkey=>something else=>human=> something more intelligent. This is the path of human`s evelution ...That we don`t see- don`t believe in it ..but it is existing, like it or not ...

Yes and no. Evolution exists, but it doesn't follow that monkeys turn in to humans. Using natural selection as a way to explain the origin of species is really tricky. Even Darwin, when he wrote his book on the Origin of Species recognised that most of it was vain speculation. Even today most biologists will reluctantly acknoledge that it is not quite that simple. There are still many things that don't fit.

By the way, most of the stuff you learn in elementary and high school science is misleading or sometimes flat out wrong. I don't know why this is, but all the useful things: relativity, quantum mechanics, and chemistry that doesn't involve playing with little balls, don't come until second year university. Mark Twain might have an explaination for this phenomenum. "In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.."

I personally belive that to deny evolution is to deny something staring you in the face. Now that that's said, that wasn't your question. I think you should remind him that most people believe in evolution as fact. But, for many people, evolution and a creating God don't necessary conflict-even Pope John Paul II admitted that evolution was "more than just a theory" (not an exact quote).

i don`t think er`re evolving! Is destroing the ozon layer evolution, are the world wars evolution?atomic bomb is an evolution for human kind? My strong believe is that we`re devolving rapidly, sadly but that`s my opinion

You're talking cultural (d)evolution, not biological evolution.

my advice would be to confront him.
tough that it really doesn't matter what your friiend does believe about evolution or creationism, but you should show him that he should'nt deny facts, cause it could be dangerous, regarding to other facts.

I have trouble with this alot at college. It didn't bother me that much until the Christian Union anti-evolutionary propoganda. One of my friends is a creationist, and I really hate it when she talks about evolution, purely becuase she has it all wrong. 99% of the people I have talked to who said they didn't 'belive' in evolution didn't understand it properly at all.

I also really hate it when people say they do, or don't 'belive' in evolution. Saying you don't belive in evolution is like saying you don't belive in gravity. Ofcourse its there and happening, just proving it is the difficult part.

Atleast I'm not in one of those idiotic American states where they ban evolution and teach creation in schools *shudder*.

This is a difficult topic indeed...
Personally, I'm agnostic, so I prefer to believe in evolution, but I can see why some people have problems with it...

In my opinion, I would start discussing about it, and even if it's just to find out when exactly he thinks happend... The number of people that still think good just made the human from nothing should be close to 0, esp. considering that even most churches don't believe that any more...

But if he just thinks that the "evolution" was guided along the right path by god, then I think that that is an acceptable stance...

Saying there is prove of evolution is always difficult, cause there always will be arguments like "why are there apes and humans but nothing in between right now" or "what are the chances of evolution really leading to the human"...

Hm, but to be honest, I've never met anyone that did not believe in evolution... but i guess creationists are something like root beer... somehow you only get them in america and most foreigner can't handle it