Evolution Is A Religious Theory Of Creation
What if a group of priest got together and started a religion that was in opposition to the common religion of their time. They would then come up with a theory of creation that was in conflict with the common religion in order to attract religion. They wanted to make themselves different from the old religion so the referred to themselves as scientist instead of priests. I propose that that is just exactly happened to start off evolution. The government calls it science but it is just religion with a different name. Lets take a look at the lack of fact in its roots.
Scientific methodology as we know it today did not exist at the time Darwin came up with his theory of evolution. He attempts to convince people he is correct, but so did Thomas Aquinas when he was attempting to define the principles of life. Considering that both men used more reason the evidence to convince their audience, I would say they were both using philosophy rather than science.
The “theories” of embryology that Darwin used were far from proven and were not generally accepted by naturalist though he treated them as fact. It is pretty clear that he picked those parts of each “theory” that best fit with his own theory since he did not try to prove his mixture of embryonic theories true and the evidence I have seen indicates it was not commonly accepted as true by the scientific community of that time.
Darwin was convinced that the “civilized” races of men would exterminate and replace the “savage” races of men and thus make the gap between man and ape larger. He stated that in The Decent Of Man. He did not state that blacks and whites were separate species but he sure did give that ideal as he also mentioned anthropomorphous apes and baboons when talking about the evolutionary gap that existed then and the one he believed would exist in the future.
Eugene Dubois was so inspired by Darwin that he joined the Dutch army in order to go to Asia and find the missing link. Wonder of Wonder he found a sample which is classified as Homo erectus and known as Java Man. Java Man was used to prove that evolution was a fact even though many question if it is a valid sample. Despite how debatable it is Java Man is still used in text books to teach the theory of evolution.
Scientific methodology as we know it today did not exist at the time Darwin came up with his theory of evolution. He attempts to convince people he is correct, but so did Thomas Aquinas when he was attempting to define the principles of life. Considering that both men used more reason the evidence to convince their audience, I would say they were both using philosophy rather than science.
The “theories” of embryology that Darwin used were far from proven and were not generally accepted by naturalist though he treated them as fact. It is pretty clear that he picked those parts of each “theory” that best fit with his own theory since he did not try to prove his mixture of embryonic theories true and the evidence I have seen indicates it was not commonly accepted as true by the scientific community of that time.
Darwin was convinced that the “civilized” races of men would exterminate and replace the “savage” races of men and thus make the gap between man and ape larger. He stated that in The Decent Of Man. He did not state that blacks and whites were separate species but he sure did give that ideal as he also mentioned anthropomorphous apes and baboons when talking about the evolutionary gap that existed then and the one he believed would exist in the future.
Eugene Dubois was so inspired by Darwin that he joined the Dutch army in order to go to Asia and find the missing link. Wonder of Wonder he found a sample which is classified as Homo erectus and known as Java Man. Java Man was used to prove that evolution was a fact even though many question if it is a valid sample. Despite how debatable it is Java Man is still used in text books to teach the theory of evolution.
posted by Kerwin | 8:56 PM
7 Comments:
Great points.
Just out of curiousity, have you ever read Darwin's The Origin of Species? If not it is readily available for free on the web or at your local library. You might find that it doesn't say what you think it says.
You might also wish to brush up on your science history, specifically in the area of evolutionary science. I would suggest www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html
as a good place to start.
Everyone is entitled to an informed opinion.
It is irrelevant whether I read Darwin’s “Origin of the Species”. I understand religion enough to say they believe their particular God more than any man. They certainly believe that God is responsible for Creation and would reject the evolutionist argument that God is irrelevant to how Creation was accomplished. The only theories a religious person can except without seriously compromising their religion are Creation and Intelligent Design. Deist are the exception as they believe God started the ball rolling and is presently ignoring/not interfering with his creation. Atheist are the only true evolutionist and agnostics are supposed to be open minded enough to except the possibility than any one of the four main variations occurred. All four can account for the evidence and none can be falsified as we have no ability to travel in time to see what really happened.
You accuse Darwin and the scientists who came before, and after him, of conspiring to create a new religion, but you don't read their writings? Would you say that it would be fair for me to critique Christianity and its roots without having read the Christian bible or any Apologetics?
When you say you understand religion enough, are you referring to your form of Christianity or ALL religions? There are over 1500 different self-identified Christian faith groups in North America alone. This doesn't even begin to cover those people with a non-Christian religious belief system or unallied groups abroad. Your understanding of religion seems to be confined, from everything I have read on your site, to your own fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity. This is all well and good, but when you misrepresent the views of others it only weakens your argument. There are as many different interpretations of Christianity as there are Christians. Christianity is not monolithic, there are many different flavors.
I, sincerely, encourage you to peruse the Talk-Origins web site. It has many good discussions of the issues you bring up regarding "evolution as religion" (www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/metaphysics.html), "unfalsifiabilty" (www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/sciproof.html) of evolution and much more. The ideas that you are expressing are not particularly original and have been responded to by the scientific community innumerable times before. It would strengthen your arguments considerably if you would not resort to straw man logical fallicies.
There are millions of people of a wide range of belief systems, including Christianity, who accept both the fact of and theory of evolution. Perhaps you might consider why they don't feel that evolution is any more a threat to their belief system than magnetism or gravity.
Everyone is entitled to an infomred opinion.
-Donald
I used the story in my post to illustrate how Evolution is a religion. I pointed to flaws in the evidence used by Charles Darwin to prove man descended from apes. I also used as evidence the active search for a missing link by Eugene Dubois. That was to illustrate my main point.
The main point of my post is faith and not evidence. Faith does impact on evidence in a way that influences how you interpret the data. Evidence may reinforce or oppose beliefs. My assumption is that Evolutionist of whatever particular sect they are sincerely believe in Evolution, so I am not critiquing Evolution rather I am merely stating it is based on faith.
I propose there are four basic types of religion that all other religions fall within. Those types are atheist who does not believe in God/gods, agnostics who hold that believe God’s/gods’ existence is irrelevant, Deist who believe God/gods started things going but does not interfere, Non-Deist Theist who believe that God/gods exist and takes an active interest in his creation.
Christians, assuming they believe in the God testified in the Bible, believe in a God that takes an active interests in his creation. That belief limits them to either the belief in some form of Creationism or in Intelligent Design. I further describe the relationship between an individuals religious beliefs and what theory of creation they except previously.
Talkorigions earnestly believes their interpretation of the evidence but that does not mean it is correct or that others have to believe otherwise. As I have shown previously that interpretation is based on whatever religious beliefs they happen to have. The government in endorsing one particular theory of Creation thus violates both the non establishment clause and the free exercise of religion.
Did you even read any of the links I put in my previous message? You seem to disregard, out of hand, anything that contradicts your preconceived ideas. As John Maynard Keynes is quoted as saying: "When the facts change, I change my mind – what do you do, sir?"
You are, once again, using the No True Scotsman Logical Fallacy when categorizing people's belief systems. You are essentially saying that self-professed Christians who find no conflict between their religious faith and the fact and theory of evolution are not true Christians. You are attempting to narrowly define what a Christian is so that it reflects only your own views.
You state: "Christians, assuming they believe in the God testified in the Bible, believe in a God that takes an active interests in his creation. That belief limits them to either the belief in some form of Creationism or in Intelligent Design. I further describe the relationship between an individuals religious beliefs and what theory of creation they except previously."
There is absolutely nothing in the bible that is in opposition to the theory of evolution. Evolution is a fact. It is observed. The mechanisms of how evolution is accomplished are constantly being examined, tested and redescribed. This is what science does. When a more accurately predictive theory is put forth it becomes the standard.
The Theory of Evolution does not describe the initial origin of life nor does it have anything to say about whether a supreme intelligience is actively involved in the fact of evolution. It looks at the process of evolution and attempts to explain what we see in a purely physical way. God could be actively interacting with every quark in every object in the universe at all times. How would we test this hypothesis? What possible predictive use is the theory that God can cause anything to happen at anytime.
You refer to the theory of evolution as a religion. What religion, when presented with facts that are in conflict with their dogma, change their doctrine? As with all scientific theories, the theory of evolution is a conditional description of what we see in the world. As more evidence is accumulated it either confirms or conflicts with the theory. If it conflicts then the theory has to be modified. This is how science works. This is why science is the most powerful tool that humans have ever invented. Science is science. Religion is religion. Know your terms.
You say:
"As I have shown previously that interpretation is based on whatever religious beliefs they happen to have."
You, emphatically, have not shown this. You have just made a blanket assertion.
Why are you afraid of the theory of evolution? Why does it bother you that humans and apes had a common ancestor 13 million years ago (700,000 + generations)? You don't believe that your God has the power to work in this way?
The theory of evolution is taught in SCIENCE classes because it is the currently accepted theory for the fact of evolution that our scientific community has. We don't teach the theories of gravity and magnetism in these SCIENCE classes as well. God does not factor in to those discussions either. Are our schools denying that God created gravity and magnetism? No, they are just irrelevant to the discussion. The same is true with the theory of evolution.
Everyone is entitled to an informed opinion.
In order for the evidence to change my mind it has to be relevant to the topic. The topic is about FAITH and BELIEF. Evidence can often be reasonably interpreted in many different ways but the way you choose to BELIEVE is based on your personal assumptions that arise from your worldview. If a letter is written to you then you will choose to BELIEVE its contents based on how you view the writer. I chose to emphasize words like BELIEF and FAITH because I do not BELIEVE that you are understanding what this post is about.
Scientist have their own system of BELIEFS that they believe are valid. They have no real evidence to prove that system is valid. Ask a philosopher. Scientist probably hate philosophers because the later puts their whole system of FAITH in doubt. A Christian Creationist can say that Satan tampered with the evidence and warped the mind of the Scientist doing the research. It is a statement that has not been proved wrong so an Evolutionist has to have FAITH that it is in fact wrong. Who is to say that the Creationist’s FAITH is any less valid than that of the Evolutionist.
You need to get more familiar with the theory of Evolution. The theory of Evolution is that God is not needed for Evolution to occur or in other words it occurs non Intelligent design. Intelligent design assumes that God is needed for Evolution to occur. Deist would say that God set Evolution in motion but does not maintain it. You can tell what is man made and what is natural occurring so there is probably a way to determine what is structured with or without intelligence.
Religions often change over time and have different justification for that change. In reality the change occurs much as it does with law or evolution with different interpretations of the evidence replacing the older interpretations as time goes on. Like Evolutionist, religious teachers interpret available evidence to reach their conclusions. The difference is what evidence they choose to treat as valid.
According to Jesus not one sparrow will fall to the ground but for the will of God. He also states the God cloths the grass of the field and feeds the ravens. John 5:17 states ”Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."“ Being a Christian and disagreeing with Jesus about God is an exclusively contradictory action.
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