science-and-religion, science, evolutionEvolution is inconsistent with a literal interpretation of the Bible and other religious cosmogonies. Does believing in evolution therefore make it impossible to be a Christian? Does it mean you can’t believe in any gods?
Humans can. Humans are generally very, very, very good at holding mutually exclusive beliefs. That doesn’t mean that such belief systems are consistent, though.
A lot of things are inconsistent with a literal interpretation of the bible.
Evolution explains how modern life developed from early life. It doesn't explain anything else that the bible purports to explain, like the creation of the universe, or the meaning of life.
Many people can and do believe in both evolution and god (the christian god or otherwise).
Everything in real life is inconsistent with a literal interpretation of the bible. Evolution is just one of many square things that a Christian has to force into the round hole of the bible. So, yes, a Christian can believe in evolution, the same as they can eat shellfish, or wear two different types of cloth, or ignore any other silly part of the bible.
A literal translation of the Bible is a relatively new phenomena, starting in the 1920s with a US fundamentalist revival. One of the direct targets of this revival was evolution.
While Biblical literalism and evolution cannot coexist, Christians and evolution certainly can. Most famously, Pope Benedict XVI and the late Pope John Paul II publicly stated that evolution and Christianity can coexist.
The Pope thinks so. Darwin thought so. I’ll say “yes”. Obviously it doesn’t square with a literal read, but only the most hardline churches believe the bible is literally true.
I do think you can do both.
However, I do not think you can be knowledgeable about the theory of evolution and believe in a literal translation of the bible.
There will always be gaps for God to hide in.
There is nothing in evolutionary theory that argues for or against the existence of God, or the notion of Jesus as savior.
The known history of the Earth (biological and geological) argues against a literal interpretation of Genesis; there’s no need to invoke evolutionary theory to show that, hey, there’s a bunch of stuff here that doesn’t fit the Biblical account. However, it does not prove or disprove the existence of God. For all we know, God could have initially poofed the Universe into existence and let it develop on its own. For all we know, God could be manually directing events even now, but operating in a manner that’s indistinguishable from natural processes (I don’t personally believe that, but I cannot prove that it isn’t the case).
There are Christian sects that demand you accept the Bible as literally true, and for those people the answer is no, you cannot believe in God and accept the idea of evolution (or a bunch of other scientific findings, really). Then there are Christian sects that only demand that you accept Jesus Christ as your savior and don’t really get worked up about the Bible itself; they have no problems reconciling modern evolutionary theory with the idea of a creator God.
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