My Hypothesis Is Right in One Person's Case

About a week ago, I had a hypothesis confirmed for me, at least in the case of one person.

I had hypothesized (some long amount of time ago) that traditional/fundamental Christians' primary objection to the theory of evolution was not, as is often said, that evolution's random chance does not make room for God. Rather, I hypothesized that their main objection was that evolution would basically rule out the literal historical existence of Adam and Eve, and that this was a problem because without Adam's Original Sin, there would be no reason for Jesus to die on the cross for humankind's salvation.

Anyway, I'd had this hypothesis banging around in my head for a while, half-forgotten, until I happened to have a conversation about evolution with my friend Ryan. Ryan is unquestionably very intelligent -- I think he's likely more intelligent than I am. He also happens to be a devout Christian of what we may call the born-again variety.

Ryan had been reading two books on Intelligent Design -- one for and one against. Intelligent Design is the current alternative to evolutionary theory being advocated by traditional Christians. Ryan told me he wanted to be well-informed about why he believes what he does. We got to talking a bit about something how stupid we both think it is for some atheists to use evolutionary theory as evidence there's no God. I made sure Ryan knew (he already did) that not all subscribers to evolution are atheists, but that many believe God was sort of responsible for evolution -- which is my opinion.

I don't remember what I asked Ryan then exactly -- I basically asked his opinion of the God-and-evolution-both idea, since he understood that one did not rule out the other. Ryan began to explain -- entirely without any coaching from me -- how he did not believe in evolution because that would mean no Adam, no Original Sin, and hence no vicarious death of Jesus.

I respect Ryan quite a lot; he's been one of my best friends since we were in elementary school. I don't want to make it seem like I devalue his opinion on its own merits because I can use it to validate my hypothesis, and I don't want to show disrespect for my friend by using him as a statistic in some kind of study. Nonetheless, I feel personally vindicated in that my hypothesis was correct for at least one person. I don't know if other people who hold Jesus as their savior like Ryan does also disbelieve in evolution for the same reason he gave, but it's encouraging to know I was not too far off the mark on that.

Of course, there's the whole issue of my big head swelling again, but that's another issue. Actually, I cannot honestly say that this hypothesis is that big a deal; just kind of a neat footnote.

------------------

------------------

Back to contents:

http://jlhart7.blogspot.com/2006/07/contents.html