Is evolution a religion?

[Shaitan]

Is evolution a religion? To tell the truth I had never heard of this comparison until a couple of weeks ago. A post on my zero tolerance site about Kathy Cox removing the word evolution from the Georgia school curriculum devolved into a debate over whether the Theory of Evolution itself is a religion.

The impetus for defining evolution as a religion is that it opens up two lines of attack from creationists. One fist could argue for evolution's removal from school curriculums based on separation of church and state. The other fist could argue for inclusion of creationism in curriculums as the religion of evolution would have set a precedent for religious teaching in public schools.

What do all y'all think?

 

[Akka]

This is stupid.

Evolution is not a belief, or a faith. It's a general conclusion.

Is "if I grab a rock and release it on the air, it will fall to the ground" a belief, or a fact ?

 

[polymath]

The dictionary.com definition of religion:

Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Conclusion: Evolution is not a religion, and anyone who claims it is either doesn't know what religion means, or is wilfully arguing in bad faith just to pursue a line of attack.

 

[Stapel]

Evolution is a theory.

In contrary to what many fundies think, its purpose is not to disprove any religion.

The Theory of Evolution is the result of scientific investigations.

Religion is the result of man's desire not the live on this planet without a purpose. At best one religion might actually be true, but this religion can co-exist with most of the theory of evolution.

 

[col]

No. Absolutely not.

It is a scientific theory subject to evidential confirmation and disproof.

Faith and belief doesnt come into it.

 

[Speedo]

Evolution itself isn't a religion, but many of it's die-hard supporters worship it, which makes it a religion to them.

 

[betazed]

Originally posted by Speedo
Evolution itself isn't a religion, but many of it's die-hard supporters worship it, which makes it a religion to them.

The die hard supporters worship it like a physicist would worship GR or QFT (say). It is a beautiful theory that explains many disparate observations succintly. This is more like you would fall in love with a beautiful woman and worship her

It is not like worshipping a religious idol or a religion which rests on no evidence but just faith.

 

[funxus]

I think Speedo brought it up a week or so ago, and most non-religious people at least thought it to be stupid. Actually worshipping Darwin and evolution is also stupid.

 

[Stapel]

Many people worship ToE, because there is not other reasonable scientific theory about the origin of species.

When people try to 'disprove' ToE with the bible in the hand, many ToE fans loose their temper and start defending the ToE in a religious way.

Whatever is the truth, I don't see the link.

-If ToE is proven to be nonsense, there still is no reason to belive in a deity (for me).
-If the existance of a deity is proven, the ToE is still a scientific theory.

 

[luiz]

It's not a religion, but there are a few people who treat it like somnthing that explains all life on Earth, and well, it doesn't.

The modern evolution theroy is incomplete to say the least.

But evolution of species is a fact, don't get me wrong folks.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Its only considered a religion by people who dont understand how science works. Its not even a theory, evolution is a fact. Its just some of the details about evolution which are open to debate.

 

[Souron]

Its not a fact, as it is derived from analisis, not directly from observation. However most scientists believe it to be true.

And to reanforce, some CF members, supportes and creationalists, do treat it as a religion.

 

[Ozz]

Religion is based on blind mindless faith
Theory is based on assumptions based on observation or
mathematics.

Anyone can dupicate Darwins works, nobody can dupicate
...........'s (insert Saint, Prophet, God of choice) miracles.

 

[Marla_Singer]

The Theory of Evolution isn't alone, it corresponds to many other scientific observations. Reaumur, in 1751, already scientifically proved how Heredity worked and Mendel confirmed it one century later thanx to experiences on garden peas. Finally, in 1910, Morgan proved the chromosomes were at the basis of heredity thanx to his experiences on fruit flies.

At the opposite of creationism, evolution isn't based on a dogma, it's based on observations. If you consider evolution as wrong, you don't deny only Darwin, you deny also the whole Biology, Genetics and Paleonthology.

We can believe in God and accept evolution of species, I don't see how both are incompatible. Now, I'll go back to the 16th century, Martin Luther were already telling then that what is important in religion isn't the dogma, it's faith.

 

[SanPellegrino]

It is only a theory not a belief, you seem to read too much threads here

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Originally posted by Souron
Its not a fact, as it is derived from analisis, not directly from observation. However most scientists believe it to be true.

I know its still called a theory, but I dont see why. Fossils of extinct animals in 10 million year old rock are facts. Obviously, 10 million years ago, there were many species that no longer exist and of those that still are around today, you can see that theyve changed over time. So evolution is a demonstrable fact isnt it? Many particulars about how it unfolded are being worked out, but it obviously happened.

 

[col]

Its a theory because all scientific explanations are theories. They may all be superceded at some future date by better theories. Newton's theories stood for hundreds of years until they were replaced by better theories.

Observations are facts.
Explanations are theories.

 

[Gothmog]

If one defines evolution as 'the shifting of allele frequency within a population", then it is a fact. This is indeed an observable.

If one uses this observable as an explanation for say... the feeding habits of a specific bird or the fossil record. Then you have the ToE, as it is open to modification through new observables. Similarly if one uses the ToE to define a testable hypothesis then it is again a theory, as the hypothesis could be found to be wrong and cause a reinterpretation of the ToE.

As polymath points out the ToE does not fit the criteria of a religion.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Evolution will become religion when it's replaced by a better theory.

 

[FredLC]

I hate to simply repeat myself, but this forum sometimes required it.

This is my post in the thread "Sacred Science:

Originally posted by FredLC
No, science will never be religion, and the simplest explanation to it is: science is too realistic for that.

See, due to science being very hard, it is true that the most uneducated brand of society accept the saying of the people versed in it as they accept the saying of religious authorities… as the given knowledge of a superior source. Simply put, many of the population of the world lacks the intelligence necessary to understand it, the education necessary to comprehend it, or they lack both. Those who aren’t among the few privileged enough to have both brains and schooling take it as gospel, not because science itself present itself that way, but because they cannot deny science power (as most people is benefited by some aspect of modern science in one or other direct way), and they receive over-simplified (and rather incomplete) versions of science findings as explanations they can reach for such achievements.

After all, a plane flying does sound like a miracle to those who do not have the faintest idea about what are combustion, engines and aerodynamics.

However, the hardness of science is not an invincible obstacle. Except those who are obtuse by birth – and there are those – any man can, given the opportunity, choose to study it, and studying it will actually teach the mechanisms behind it. In science, there are no mysteries that have to be accepted as so, and here, in this principle of understanding, lies the first and most fundamental difference between science and religion.

The second difference is being very underestimated in this very thread. It’s the fact that, unlike some people mentioned, science is not dogmatic. Quite the contrary, the very essence of science is the opening it has to new ideas, the fluent nature of knowledge, and the encouragement for revisionism of older ideas. It is the very anti-thesis of dogmatism, and people tend to brand science as so due to the fact that it stands by solid ideas even when they are unpopular to some part of society, namely the “creation X evolution” debates.

Sorry to say that to those who like to brand science like this, but it differs from religion entirely in such aspect. Great man of science are not entitled to state things arbitrarily, they have to be backed by testable and reproducible evidence – unlike great man of religion, that decides what is right or wrong out of their own heads, than after rely on “you can’t prove me wrong” (as if anyone could ever prove a negative).

The third aspect of difference, and this one also fundamental, is that science does not provide generic comfort. Unlike religion, that is all about loving deities, eternal lives and reward for the good versus punishment for the wicked, science deals only with material and measurable information, and it prescribes reality exactly in the best way our resources allow, whether we enjoy what we find or not. So yeah, to science, you will live this short life and that is it, no everlasting prorogation in a heavenly paradise. And yeah, if a bad man dies unpunished, sorry to say but he got away, no little devils with forks expecting him in a fiery hell.

Life is not intrinsically good, not intrinsically fair, and that is a harsh reality that science never runs away from. Whatever good we want, we have to build, we can’t count on celestial daddies to give it to us. And by lacking this tendency to give a (unrealistic) comfort, it will never replace the emotional place of religion in the heart of many man. A price it pays for it’s intellectual honesty.

Last but not least, science is universal, unrelated to people by their ethnical background, or by their acceptance of the scientific world. Science, defined as a "description of the reality", does not need approval, and a surgery will save the life of even those who don’t believe in medicine. “Opening your heart” to it is insignificant, unlike religion, that only have appeal to those emotionally vulnerable to it.

Plain and simple, what happens is the fact that we are lucky enough to live in an era where science is in its prime, getting better and stronger by the minute, explaining the world more and more, and giving solutions to an enormous amount of problems that once were untouchable. And its outstanding efficiency grants science and the scientific method a growing trust with the population, a popularity that is the inevitable consequence of anything that is able to so positively change the life of people.

However, as science explains the world to us, and once it was (and in many aspects it still is) the role of religion, they tend to conflict. As the religious explanations are systematically and categorically been swallowed down by the far more reasonable, and extremely better substantiated scientific approaches to the same problems, science tends to gain more space, and religion tends to loose appeal.

Religion reacts to that in several manners, all of them counting with the deep roots it have in society. The first is to state that science is limited, hence not comparable with the absolutism of the believe – what is a complete inversion of reality, as its exactly because science accepts that it is not perfect what allows it to perfect itself into an unparalleled benchmark of efficiency; Second, by distorting science claims to make them sound ridicule (failing to see that saying that it is “absurd that a gorilla gives birth to a man” is only to equate science to it’s own level, that states that man is a “walking mud statue”*)

* - note: I used the creation X evolution example, but this is only allegoric, I don’t want to turn this into a creation X evolution thread.

Finally, when they realize that science will start appealing the population (in a distorted way, as I previously explained, but in a way that represents the basics of scientific thinking anyway), religious tries another shot by claiming that it is a new form of religion itself. This is basically an approach that tries to equate the two visions (to make it sound as if going for one instead of the other was just an aspect of taste, having nothing to do with the proficiency of the two paradigms), and a way to ignore that the reason for the growth of the ruthless, uncomforting claims of science before the fluffy “it’s gonna be alright” of religion is the fact that science is actually doing things to make life better, and it’s so undeniable that people cannot ignore it forever. So, science really does not promises, but it delivers anyway, and this will make people sensible to the fact that you can be good without being demagogic, and that in fact it’s easier to be good that way.

If one day the respect for science and its axiom replaces entirely religion – what a doubt will ever happen – we won’t have a new great religion on the world, what we will have is a principle of understanding and a solid grasp on reality as a humane trait, things that are quite lacking in the world presently.

But don’t worry, as long as there are people that wishes absolute answers and words of relief and of comfort (even if unrealistic), nothing ever will erase religion from the face of earth.

Regards .

Edit: I've taken the oportunity to remove a redundant part of one paragraph. No alteration in meaning, ideas or presentation.