If you accept evolution, how do you NOT become an atheist?

Started by yodachoda, January 17, 2012, 01:39:29 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

yodachoda

I really don't get how one can learn and accept evolution as true, then NOT become an atheist.  This is how evolution works:

You have 10 bacteria.  Eight of them are resistant to cold weather, two of them are not.  Winter comes along and the cold weather kills off the two bacteria that had genes coding for resistance to cold weather. 

That's evolution, that's how it works.  That exact same process, except substitute cold weather for different things, is what turned bacteria into rotifers.  Rotifers into fish.  Fish into acanthostega.  Acanthostega into amphibians.  Amphibians into reptiles.  Reptiles into synapsids.  Synapsids into Theria.  Theria into placentalia.  Placentalia into (going more specific here) monkey.  Monkey into human.  3.8 billion years of the environment naturally selecting reproductively isolated groups of individuals until finally humans were produced. 

It does not at all require any kind of mind or intelligence behind it.  What does God actually even do in that short bacteria example I explained? 

yepimonfire

god created bacteria to create everything else? idunnolol



Buddy

Strange but not a stranger<br /><br />I love my car more than I love most people.

BullyforBronto

Quote from: yodachoda on January 17, 2012, 01:39:29 AM
I really don't get how one can learn and accept evolution as true, then NOT become an atheist.  This is how evolution works:

You have 10 bacteria.  Eight of them are resistant to cold weather, two of them are not.  Winter comes along and the cold weather kills off the two bacteria that had genes coding for resistance to cold weather. 

That's evolution, that's how it works.  That exact same process, except substitute cold weather for different things, is what turned bacteria into rotifers.  Rotifers into fish.  Fish into acanthostega.  Acanthostega into amphibians.  Amphibians into reptiles.  Reptiles into synapsids.  Synapsids into Theria.  Theria into placentalia.  Placentalia into (going more specific here) monkey.  Monkey into human.  3.8 billion years of the environment naturally selecting reproductively isolated groups of individuals until finally humans were produced. 

It does not at all require any kind of mind or intelligence behind it.  What does God actually even do in that short bacteria example I explained? 

One cannot be a theist and accept the theory of evolution via natural selection. The two are irreconcilable. I suppose if one had to cite a metaphysical explanation for the biological phenomena we observe and interpret, it would have to be utterly deistic. Id est, god created shit, and then went out for an eternal beer.


Whitney

Look up deism, pantheism, and perhaps even animism and you'll have your answer.

Any of the above would say that their god, gods, or spirits had a hand in the process that started everything going.

I stand by my ongoing view that evolution doesn't negate the existence of a god...it has nothing to do with the topic.

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: Whitney on January 17, 2012, 03:32:36 AM
I stand by my ongoing view that evolution doesn't negate the existence of a god...it has nothing to do with the topic.

This^

It just makes certain claims that theists make a little less likely.

I think that evolutionary theory is more incompatible with the belief that we're the goal rather than the result of the process. Goals require foresight whereas results don't.
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


McQ

Whitney already pointed it out, and I'll second it. Evolution and believing in a god in general have nothing to do with one another. However, if you're talking about a religion that specifically states that evolution cannot be true because their particular god is responsible for all creation and subsequent modification of all life forms of all kinds at all times....well, then you run into a problem. That would be a tiny fraction of all the religions out there in the world.

So it doesn't really make much sense to say that one has to be an atheist if one accepts evolution.

And you run into problems when people who don't know what they're talking about try and debate the topic, or try and shoehorn their god into the topic when that god doesn't need to be shoehorned in. Like creationism in parts of christianity.

Elvis didn't do no drugs!
--Penn Jillette

Twentythree

Evolution does not disprove god. It plays a very large role is disproving creationist mythology and thus discrediting "religions", particularly those that rely on creation myths as a foundation of their religious teachings. However, god itself can always be pushed into remote recesses of space time and exist there as the initial instigator of everything. He who flipped the switch that started time. No one can argue that a critical component to evolution is time...and lots of it. Therefore god concepts can exist in light of evolution.

Ali

Quote from: Twentythree on January 17, 2012, 05:11:21 PM
Evolution does not disprove god. It plays a very large role is disproving creationist mythology and thus discrediting "religions", particularly those that rely on creation myths as a foundation of their religious teachings. However, god itself can always be pushed into remote recesses of space time and exist there as the initial instigator of everything. He who flipped the switch that started time. No one can argue that a critical component to evolution is time...and lots of it. Therefore god concepts can exist in light of evolution.

Exactly.  The only thing that evolution dissproves is a literal view of creation myths that include modern day animals emerging as is.  Having said that, I can understand how someone who was raised to believe such a creation myth and then learns about evolution and asks him/herself "Well, if that wasn't true, what else in my religion is not true?"

AnimatedDirt

Quote from: yodachoda on January 17, 2012, 01:39:29 AM
I really don't get how one can learn and accept evolution as true, then NOT become an atheist.  This is how evolution works:

[...]Placentalia into (going more specific here) monkey.  Monkey into human.  3.8 billion years of the environment naturally selecting reproductively isolated groups of individuals until finally humans were produced. 

It does not at all require any kind of mind or intelligence behind it.  What does God actually even do in that short bacteria example I explained?

I don't hold anything against evolution as we know it.  However to "yada, yada" over the most important part is...

MinnesotaMike

<--- Taking a relevant college course on biblical interpretation (not trying to be pretentious)

According to both the reading and the scholar/rabbi/professor guy, the original Hebrew says nothing about the creation from nothing, but rather the formation/organization by Yaweh of what was. That being said, if someone understood the non-translated text, they could simply claim that evolution is the mechanism by which their god created animals and man.

For believing in most gods though, evolution doesn't pose any conflict. For those that pick one of the creation myths in Genesis as fact and think Yaweh created rather than formed (Amereligion), evolution would not fit in. That being said, the people who disregard evolution because of their religion would likely not forfeit it when shown evolution is true. Their belief system is an elastic band with a near-infinite stretch tolerance for reality. But at the end of the day, no matter how far it stretches, they will not have escaped the band.
Absence of knowledge is not reason for faith.

I'm infallible (if I'm not mistaken)

Ecurb Noselrub

I think the question in the OP has been adequately answered. Furthermore, it may be that evolution by natural selection working on random mutations is the only or best way to create beings such as ourselves with a moral sense. The struggle involved in evolving has left us with the sensitivities and values that we have.

Too Few Lions

#13
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on January 17, 2012, 09:54:35 PM
I think the question in the OP has been adequately answered. Furthermore, it may be that evolution by natural selection working on random mutations is the only or best way to create beings such as ourselves with a moral sense. The struggle involved in evolving has left us with the sensitivities and values that we have.
that does rather assume that we're the reason for natural selection and evolution, and that a moral sense is somehow relevant to evolution. I don't think many (if any) serious biological scientists would agree with you. It seems like you're trying to make evolution fit with your belief in a god in a rather unscientific way.

Personally, I'm not convinced that humans are the 'crown of creation', we're certainly not the most successful species on Earth. I think ants beat us hands down, there are an estimated 10000000 - 1000000000 billion of the litle critters on the planet. And if the whole point of evolution by natural selection was to create animals with a moral sense, why do all other animals appear to lack one? Surely all animals should end up evolving a moral sense if that's the purpose of evolution.

yepimonfire

Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on January 17, 2012, 09:54:35 PM
I think the question in the OP has been adequately answered. Furthermore, it may be that evolution by natural selection working on random mutations is the only or best way to create beings such as ourselves with a moral sense. The struggle involved in evolving has left us with the sensitivities and values that we have.


i'm not entirely sure that having a moral sense and all of the complex emotional functions along with them is necessarily beneficial to our survival.