Post Here if You Don't Believe in God Because of Evolution

Great Debates
21

Bill,
Belief in Jesus Christ as your personal savior does not in any way preclude an acceptance of the evidence for the evolutionary process.

Note the difference:

The divinity of Jesus can neither be proven or disproven. One accepts it on faith alone.

The process of evolution is based on the evidence of similarity of structures in both past and present life forms, comparative anatomy of present-day species, and more subtle evidence like protein homology (with a tip o’ the hat to Ben). The evidence for evolution in no way depends on faith.

I am an atheist because I take nothing on faith. I see absolutely no evidence anywhere for the existence of supernatural phenomena.

Another reason why I became an atheist was because of the conduct of Christians. My experience with Christians showed that while there was an enlightened minority, the majority of the Christians I met were uneducated and bigoted. I met a lot of mean Christians who hated Catholics, blacks, and Jews. When I was a boy Scout, the Christian church where my troop met wouldn’t allow me to bring a friend of mine who was black. Later, a pastor told me that a good friend of mine who had died hang gliding was burning in Hell because he wasn’t born again. If these people were the body of Christ, then Christ I could do without.

I also had to deal with my homosexuality. The Bible says gay people are evil. I know that I am not evil, so the Bible had to be wrong, at least in that instance. All I wanted was to love and be loved, and if the Bible says that that is wrong, then clearly the guys who wrote it were cruel.

In addition, the whole idea of a loving God creating a personal torture pit to torment sinners for all eternity is monstrous. Not even Hitler or Pol Pot were that cruel. Any god who loves the suffering of His creatures is a devil, not a god and is unworthy of worship.

22

Where is this pizza parlor? I want to know so I can avoid it…

-L

23

Nope. It’s not a reason at all. The reason I do not believe in God (or any deity–take your pick) is because I find the so-called evidence of their existences unconvincing. Also, my personal experience leads me to believe that belief in God is a complex interaction of biochemical action in the brain, internal monologue, and wish fulfillment.

To throw a monkey wrench in, during the time in my life when I was a Christian, I converted after I already had learned about evolution. Becoming a Christian didn’t make me unlearn what science I had learned; and I do not have the authority to contradict established science because I find it personally inconvenient.

Off-the-cuff answer is “no,” but you’re going to need to phrase the question a little differently for me to provide you with a better answer. Is the “proving wrong” accomplished by a different, scientifically robust theory explaining the availability evidence more completely, or is it accomplished by a giant dude with white hair and beard and flowing robe appearing in the sky and saying, “Six days means six days, you twits”?

You mean the Ultimate Origin of Life, the Universe and Everything[sup]TM[/sup]? Beats me. I find the abiogenetic theories of life on Earth, to the extent I understand them, to be sufficient. Same with the existing models for the origin of the universe.

I suspect that what you’re getting at is how we answer the question, “Why are we here?” To which I can only respond, in my best Matrix fashion, “There is no ‘why,’ Neo.” “Why” is a question we as humans have fashioned for ourselves; it doesn’t mean there is an answer to it.

24

I was turned off to God by hierarchal churches competing over his will and reasons. It would be absurd to think that a hidden God’s implied will is to pick one of thousands of absolute dogmas, when it is more logical to assume that his implied will is to consciously pick none (religiously avoid all) and even reject the idea of a comprehensible god. This means that atheists could be devoutly of a higher religious mentality that focuses on self-applied development and ethics and not on renunciation, repression or sublimation.

25

(1) Nope. I had decided my religious leanings long before I studied evolution in any depth. I live in an area where I am surrounded by people like you, Bill, and their continual obnoxious, offensive, idiotic arrogance was the primary reason that I originally shied away from Christianity. I know that several Christians here have explained this to you, so I thought I’d back them up from the other side of the fence. (If that’s possible - it certainly creates an odd mental picture. :))

Astoundingly enough, at the public and private schools I attended, I was NEVER TOLD that evolution meant there was no God. That little gem never occurred to me until I started reading the Creationist literature (as part of my research into evolutionary theory) after college. If it weren’t for those hardworking creation ‘scientists’, I would never have known that God doesn’t exist because evolution happens. :rolleyes:

(2) Nope.

In the first place, there is far too much evidence for evolution to EVER be “proved absolutely WRONG”. The theories may be revised to account for new data, but that’s the way science works, so it wouldn’t bother me a bit.

In the second place, since evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with my religious beliefs, even if it were “proved wrong”, I certainly wouldn’t turn to religion as a result.

If I ever decide to turn religious (an event at least as unlikely as the creationists like to pretend evolution is), it most certainly won’t be Christianity. Although I can appreciate some of the messages and ideas embodied in that religion, I don’t need the trappings that come with it. Besides, I’d have to associate with those same hateful idiots that I’ve come to know and detest. Sorry, but they don’t live up to my moral standards and I won’t waste my time on them.

(3)As far as explaining how things became the way they are - I don’t feel a particular need to do so. I find the study of evolution, natural selection, et al, to be fascinating, astounding, and sometimes awe-inspiring - but it’s not any sort of foundation bedrock upon which my entire being rests. It’s science, not a religion.

At any rate, your questions are meaningless. They only make sense from your bizarre, warped perspective, Bill.

No offense intended towards the majority of Christian posters on this board, whom I have generally found to be reasonable, polite, civil, and interesting. I think y’all know the type I’m talking about & it ain’t you. Some of you are quite impressive indeed and, along with a few people I’ve met IRL recently, have done a lot to redeem Christians in my view. Wildest Bill is one of that type, however, although I’ve seen lots worse. But then y’all have been trying to tell him that yourselves, eh?

26

Thanks, minty green!

Bill, I don’t expect you to be able to prove the existence of anything supernatural. Your answer to both questions I posed would obviously be “no.” From this, I expected you to infer that my understanding and acceptance of evolution has no bearing on my acceptance of any other theory. I do not accept theistic theories simply because, in my opinion, there is insufficient evidence to support them, not because they are eclipsed by any other theory.

27

Bill, I suspect you won’t be satisfied with many of the answers here, in part because I think you fumbled the question. You fumbled it because you don’t understand just how science works. I’ll explain as I answer.

No. My non-belief in God predates my understanding of how biodiversity comes about.

OK, these two (related) parts are where you made an error. When Darwin published Origin of Species, the scientific world didn’t just collectively slap itself on the forehead and say “Of course!” (To be fair, no small number of scientists did exactly that, though. It was that big a breakthrough).

But in order for evolution to gain the standing it currently has in the scientific world, lots of evidence had to be collected. So much has been collected that there is just not going to be a single discovery that proves evolution wrong (short, of course, of Odin coming back and crushing some skulls). You have to understand that there have been a variety of competing theories about how biodiversity comes about that did not involve a deity. Evolution is the one that won the day because it best fit the evidence.

No, if evolution were somehow to turn out to be wrong in the eyes of science, it will be because someone offers an explanation that better fits the mounds of evidence accumulated.

So the answer to your questions depends on what the new, better explanation looks like. Atheists and evolutionists (separate groups, as noted) are not idiots – they will adapt to a theory that conforms to the evidence. Let’s take a few fanciful examples:

If the new, better explanation takes the form of Jesus coming back and saying “No, you idiots, it was Dad all along, just like the Bible says,” then yeah, you’re damn skippy that I’d be more inclined to believe in God. Likewise if Siva returns to undo what she had done, or any of the other religions’ Gods. Whichever deity comes back first is the one that gets my belief.

On the other hand, what if it the proposed mechanism turns out to be some sort of reworked Lamarkism? Than I might not believe any more in God but I’d certainly hope there was a God, because I’d rather shoot myself than have to listen to a bunch of smug neo-Lamarkians for the rest of my life, so I’d be rooting pretty hard for a decent afterlife.

If it turned out that what we think of as evolution actually does occur, but speciation events only occurred while the earth passed through some as-yet-undiscovered radiation band, than that would have no influence at all on my belief in God.

So, to conclude: the answer to your main question is “no, evolution does not make me a non-believer in God, not even a little bit.”

28

Bill,

You might want to read a book called “How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science” by Michael Shermer. Shermer is an agnostic, former Christian (I think even by your standards), former atheist, and Director of the Skeptics society. The book gives great insight into why people believe or don’t believe.

Why Skeptics don’t believe

  1. There is no proof of God’s existance
  2. There is no need to believe in God
  3. It is absurd to believe in God
  4. God in unknowable
  5. Science provides all the answers we need.

Why people believe (general population survey):

  1. Good design/natural beauty/perfection/complexity of the world or universe
  2. Experience of God in everyday life
  3. It is comforting consoling
    4 The Bible says so
  4. Just because/faith/need to believe in something
29

When I was younger, I believed in God. I also believed in evolution, not to mention gravity, the theory of relativity, and a few other scientific concepts.

Now, I no longer believe in god. I still believe in evolution, gravity, and relativity.

The conclusion of my little scientific experiment would seem to be that a belief in evolution has no impact on the belief in God.

30

Well just from the post so far. Thanks for answering btw. It seems to indicate people wouldn’t believe in God even if the evolution theory wasn’t around.

If I would have probably thought for minute(did I say that)before I posted, I would have looked at history(before evolution was brought about by Darwin) as an answer to my question. Some people didn’t believe in God then for a variety of reasons just like people that posted here.

As an extreme example, some of the Jews, for instance, that left Egypt even after seeing the miracles they saw still lost faith and made a golden calf. I never could figure that out. I mean what gives a golden calf power? Why would they pick one of the dumbest animals(I raised cows they are DUMB) to worship? Seems like they would have least picked an owl or eagle or something to make a golden image of.

As a twist, I wonder pecentage wise do more people believe in God now or pre evolution? That might have been a better question.

But anyway thanks for paticipating in this. And thanks for the civil tone.

31

Bill, as an aside, are you high?

32

Remember those “Mexican Diet Pills”?

Sheesh…this is really ridiculous. Maybe Bill shouldn’t have spent so much time with the cows.

33

I was going to say no to this but the more I think about it the more I think it probably has some effect. While the idea of evolution is not incompatible with a god, the fact that religions have to adjust to scientific advancement can’t help but cast some doubt on the authority of the religion. After a few hundred years the addmission that you were never supposed to take this literally is a bit lame.

Theories of evolution and scientific thought in general have devalued the utility of religion in offering explanations. On another level, the dogged insistence of some to deny the evidence makes religion look bad. Were I questioning my beliefs I don’t think I would side with the buffoons.

My favorite part of Bill’s question was this:

Those of us with a scientific world view understand that evolutionary and other scientific theories do not answer all our questions. They provide a framework for further inquiry with a promise that our understanding will continue to grow. Your question is entirely falacious because it assumes that you can explain anything with your world view. Even a 5 year old will ask the obvious question: where did god come from?

34

Nooo…it’s Mexican FAT BURNERS.

:wink:
I still don’t see how evolution would be contrary to God. After all, who started it? How did life itself start? I personally believe it was God. I think he’s more subtle than people give him credit for.

I mean, jesus, even the Pope believes in evolution. Considering how conservative JP tends to be, I’d say that’s something.

35

Jesus AND the Pope believe evolution! Eat that, Bill! :wink:

36

So here is the question is one of the main reasons you don’t believe in God evolution?
Nope.

Second part, if evolution was proved absolutely WRONG would you be more inclined to believe in God?
Nope.

If you say no, how would you explain everything and you being here? :shrug: I can’t. That just means that I don’t know or cannot put it into words, however, nothing else can be inferred from that.

37

Well, sure. But neither of them is/was Christian!

::g,d&r::

38

Bill:

I think so. But then again, not really.

Don’t blame evolution, Bill. Blame science.

Y’see, before the advent of the Scientific Method, right around the time of the Enlightenment, people had no underatanding of how things happened. For example, it was once common knowledge that houseflies spontaneously appeared in rotting meat. Leave the meat out, poof–flies would magically appear.

Duh. 'Tain’t the case, right? We know that there is a rational explanation for things–flies lay eggs in meat, maggots hatch, and pupate into more flies. Nothing all that mysterious.

Prior to the idea that things do have explanations, the only answer was the supernatural. Lightning is incomprehensible–must be Thor. The sun moves in the sky–must be Helios. You’re ill? Let’s leech you, that’ll fix you.

We can know things. We can understand things. That’s what rationalism and science are about. Your computer would never have been made if people still thought lightning was the wrath of God.

With explanations for why things happen, people began to realize that maybe “it’s magic” isn’t an acceptable explanaiton for everything that happens. When you understand how things work, you become less afraid. And for many, being less afraid means being less inclined to look to a capricious god for answers.

Lightning is electricity. The Earth orbits the Sun. Mrs. andros survived giving birth not due to God’s will, but because her doctor washed his hands.

And so it goes.

39

andros: *Y’see, before the advent of the Scientific Method, right around the time of the Enlightenment, people had no underatanding of how things happened. […]

Prior to the idea that things do have explanations, the only answer was the supernatural. *

Oh pooh, andros, your general distinction between the supernatural and the scientific may be largely valid but your history’s as full of holes as a maggoty rib roast. The “scientific method” did not spring into being “around the time of the Enlightenment” and sweepingly replace universal reliance on the supernatural. For one thing, the so-called “Scientific Revolution” took shape a couple centuries before the Enlightenment, during the Renaissance (and even before). For another, there was plenty of “scientific method” scattered around in various topics even in remote antiquity. The sphericity of the earth, the periodicity of celestial motions, the causes of eclipses and of lunar phases, and numerous phenomena in physics and medicine, to name only a handful of examples, were all explained in terms of natural phenomena by means of systematic observation long before the “Scientific Revolution” came around. Yes, it was during and after the Renaissance that the “scientific method” came to dominate the study of the natural world as it now does, but it was hardly unknown prior to that period. The views of human beings about the universe surrounding them have always consisted of a mix of rationalist material explanations and ascriptions to mysterious supernatural powers, just as they do today (although, perhaps, in somewhat different proportions).

And can you always tell so certainly which is which, by the way? There’s nothing about the bare idea of spontaneous generation of flies from rotting meat that is automatically more “unscientific” than, say, the idea of abiogenesis of any kind. The difference is in how the idea is handled: how it is incorporated into existing theories of natural phenomena and how it’s tested against observation of controlled experiments. There are plenty of things that scientists today believe to be true that will turn out in the future to be inadequately supported and will be discarded, just as the notion of spontaneous generation was. That doesn’t make them automatically “superstition” or “magic”.

And just so I don’t hijack this thread too much, I’ll answer the OP’s questions:

  • No, the fact that evolution provides an alternative explanation for the diversity of living beings—as opposed to just shrugging and saying “Well, that’s the way God created them”—isn’t what makes me an atheist. Neither is the fact that Newtonian physics provides an alternative explanation for the motion of the planets, as opposed to just shrugging and saying “Well, that’s the way God created them.”

  • No, if evolution were to be superseded by another theory of the origin and development of life, it wouldn’t incline me to believe in God. (As other posters have pointed out, if God Himself changed my mind by a display of unmistakably supernatural powers, that would be a different question.) If evolution were somehow “proved wrong” without being superseded by a new scientific theory—if, as you say, scientists just “came up with proof evolution was not possible”? Well, as others have pointed out, if you understood much about science, that wouldn’t strike you as a likely scenario: scientific ideas about what is “possible” and “impossible” generally occur in the context of theories (models, paradigms, what have you). It’s very rare (in fact, I cannot think of a single instance in the history of science as far as I know it, and I’m a professional historian of science, btw) that a scientist simply “proves” that any existing theory is “impossible” devoid of the context of any more satisfactory theory to replace it.

  • But if that were to happen, no, I wouldn’t get all upset about the fact that I couldn’t explain “everything and me being here”. There are lots of things I can’t explain even now, and I never expect to be able to explain “everything”. In fact, insisting that one’s own explanations are absolutely complete and incontestable, as many Bible-literalists claim, has always seemed to me incomprehensibly greedy and arrogant. Why would anyone imagine that God wants human beings to have easy, unthinking answers to immensely complex questions? That’s always seemed to me like projecting weak human conceit and complacency onto the mind of God, and I have never understood how anyone can claim to reconcile it with the need for Christian humility.

40

(sigh)

Evolution, of living things, and of the universe, is fact. The theories that describe how evolution works came about BECAUSE certain people took a hard look on (at) how they got here.

The study of evolutionary processes has nothing whatsoever to do with proving the existence or non-existence of God. This has been stated again and again on this board.

No. One has nothing to do with the other.

I don’t. How do you explain “everything and you” being here?