Evolution and Atheism
Does Evolution Require Atheism?
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One of the things which seems to cause many people to be inclined to rejecting evolution is the idea, often perpetuated by religious fundamentalists and scientific creationists, that evolution and atheism are deeply intertwined. According to such critics, accepting the evolutionary explanation for life on Earth necessarily leads a person to being an atheist (along with associated things like becoming a communist, immoral, etc.).
The problem is, none of this is actually true. Contrary to what many critics so often claim, evolution has nothing to say about the origins of the universe, the world, or life itself. Evolution is about the development of life; a person can accept evolution as the best explanation for the diversity and development of life on Earth while also believing that the Earth and life on it were first caused by God. As a result, there is no reason why a person cannot be a theist and also accept the theory of evolution.
Well, even if evolution does not cause a person to necessarily be an atheist, doesn't it at least incline a person to become an atheist? This is a more difficult question to answer. In reality, there seems to be little evidence that this is the case - millions and millions of people on the planet are theists who accept evolution, including many biologists and even biologists who are most directly involved with research on evolution. This suggests that we cannot conclude that acceptance of the theory of evolution inclines a person to atheism.
Personally, however, I'm not really sure why that is the case. Although it is true that evolution is not about the origins of life, and hence the way is left open for a god to be thought responsible for that, the fact remains that the process of evolution itself is incompatible with so many of the attributes traditionally ascribed to God in the West.
Why would the god of Christianity, Judaism or Islam produce us humans through a process which has required such untold death, destruction, and suffering over the course of hundreds of millennia? Indeed, what reason is there to think that we humans are the purpose of life on this planet - we've only taken up a small fraction of time here. If were were to use time or quantity and a standard of measurement, other life forms are much better candidates for the "purpose" of terrestrial life; moreover, maybe the "purpose" is yet to come and we are but one more stage on that path, no more or less important than any other.
Thus, while it may be wrong to say that accepting evolutionary explanations for life on Earth does not make a person more likely to become an atheist, it does seem appropriate to say that anyone who consciously considers and accepts evolution should think about it long and hard enough to cause them to seriously question some of their traditional religious and theistic beliefs. Such beliefs may not be abandoned, but they may not continue untouched.
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