Evolution is an entirely natural process. It occurs through well understood mechanisms for which we are gaining ever improving detail. The belief in theistic evolution runs counter to all this; it is not compatible with the theory. Yes, yes, there are people who say they accept both their interventionist god and evolution and therefore their views are not contradictory, but that holds no relevance here. Things don’t become compatible simply because a lot of people believe them simultaneously.
In order for one’s views to be consistent with evolution, one can only hold two positions: atheism or a sort of deism. By “a sort of deism” I mean either exactly deism or something where, okay, there is a god who intervenes in human affairs, dictates our morality, and does all that other magic bigoted thought-crime sort of thing, but this god does so incidentally. That is, since no particular form of life, much less characteristic, much less species, was ever destined to exist by any law of biology, a god which it is believed made humans (or intelligent life, a la Miller) inevitable is necessarily false. Only a god which had no part in evolution is tenable; evolution is a miracle free process.
So let’s break it down:
Atheism: Entirely compatible with the theory of evolution. The process of natural selection is miracle free and excludes all directed intervention.
Traditional Deism: Compatible, but likely unsatisfying. By “traditional” I mean the deism which says there was a creator with intention that began the Universe, but that creator’s interest ended there.
Other Deism: Compatible, but still unsatisfying. I use “other” because there is no particular name for this sort of deism as far as I am aware. This is the deism which says we have a moral lawgiver and all that swell BS, but it can only be incidental. The theory of evolution tells us that humans were not destined to exist, therefore we cannot say that this interventionist god planned on us, as if we’re somehow special.
Theistic evolution: Not compatible. No species are destined to exist. That includes humans.
Creationism: Moronic anti-science nonsense. It isn’t compatible with any major branch of science.
I have excluded agnosticism because it doesn’t mean much to say that this or that is or is not compatible with “idunno”.
Filed under: Evolution | Tagged: atheism, Creationism, deism, Evolution, Miracles |
For the Sake of Science 
All this is ‘a given’ to me. I take it further.
http://choiceindying.com/2011/02/07/the-new-atheism-once-again/
So, I am a believer in God. A Christian in the Anabaptist (Amish, Mennonite) tradition.
I am NOT a scientist and have just general knowledge of the topic.
All the same, I have no great problem with evolution as I understand it. I guess I would fall under the traditional deism or Theistic evolution categories, of the ones you have provided.
But I don’t know that I see the “unsatisfying” nature of my position, as it relates to science.
I do hold that God is the Creator of all things. I would also say that I don’t know (not having been there and having no evidence one way or the other) HOW God created all things.
Did God create a “Big Bang” and let things go from there? Did God “destine” a species to exist? I don’t know.
I just think that science doesn’t answer the HOW or WHY of all questions. How did the Big Bang get started, for instance. If I were guessing, I’d guess “God,” although I can’t prove it. Any more than science can prove that it wasn’t a Creator.
I don’t know that “God” is the kind of thing that is measurable or provable.
I guess I just don’t see the difficulty, but perhaps that’s because I’m not that much of a science-y kind of guy.
Religion does not answer the HOW or WHY and never has. Does anyone know what question religion has an answer for?
Fair enough. Religion certainly does not perfectly answer how or why and oftentimes, people come away from religion with really BAD answers to questions.
Still…
WHY should I love my neighbor?
WHY should I treat the earth with respect?
WHY should I be concerned for the down and out?
WHY should I seek peace, not war?
WHY should I love my enemies?
HOW can an oppressed people best respond to oppression?
HOW do we work to resolve the problems of poverty?
HOW do we deal with differences of opinions?
These are all answers that some find in various faith traditions. SOME of those answers are piss-poor and illogical as hell. But SOME of those answers are pretty solid.
I guess you may know that MLK and Gandhi (among others) developed their very astute approach to Nonviolent Direct Action from the teachings of Jesus? That is, to me, a VERY GOOD “how” answer that comes from faith traditions. For instance.
I don’t think religion has much to say to science, insofar as answering “How has the world come to be as it is” in that the Bible and other faith documents are not scientific treatises (although some people mistakenly try to use it as such).
But HOW do I live aright?
I think there are plenty of solid answers to be found in faith traditions, alongside of the bad ones.
Do you disagree?
Where I said…
These are all answers that some find in various faith traditions
…of course, I meant, these are all questions that many faith traditions have found solid answers to…
Nonviolent Direct Action did mot come only from the teachings of Jesus, but preceded it, as well as it’s cousin, the golden rule.
There are solid answers and they can be found in all religions and in all cultures including those with no religion. They came from humanity which had to live in various cultures and humans had to figure out how to get along. It is genetically programmed and the results are borrowed by various religions and cultures.
Since religions have or had so many bad answers over the millenniums , I see no useful purposes besides comforting the weak, sick and bereaved – and they do that comforting with lies and fairy tales.
Since religions have or had so many bad answers over the millenniums , I see no useful purposes besides comforting the weak, sick and bereaved – and they do that comforting with lies and fairy tales
Yes, religion (and science – anyone need a blood leeching for improved health or a hole drilled in their head to let bad spirits escape?) has had bad answers in the past, along with good answers. I am not arguing otherwise.
But when folk like MLK, like Oscar Romero, like Gandhi, like Mother Teresa, like my parents, like my church, like millions of ordinary and extraordinary people every day have learned the value of protecting and assisting “the least of these,” and have implemented programs to ease the problems of homelessness, have stood boldly and bravely against oppressive armies/nations, have built homes for the homeless, fed the hungry, built hospitals, I am impressed by the answers these folk found/find in their faith.
When they dedicate years and lives – oftentimes at a financial cost and sometimes at the cost of their lives – to teaching the poor to read, in finding jobs for the unemployed, in assisting the needy in countless ways…
Well, I won’t belabor the point. I don’t think you are saying that there aren’t people of faith who do not contribute good answers to society/the world, are you?
So, I wonder then, if they/we find these answers and motivations in our faith (however imperfectly and incompletely), where do you think the “lies” and “fairy tales” are?
What lie do you guess that I either believe or pass on? What fairy tale do you think I believe?
Crazy medical practices from the past…
For the record, I don’t blame todays’ scientists for scaryawful practices in the past any more than I blame some people of faith for the crazyawful religious practices of others.
Oh, and ironically, I learned not to blame one group for the bad actions of the others through my faith tradition’s teachings…
Don’t use Mother Teresa as an example. She has been exposed as opressing women and keeping people in poverty. See the work of Christopher Hitchens on this.
What lies and fairy tales, you ask?
The basic lie and fairy tale of an afterlife. There is no evidence of that whatsoever. Compound that with all the promises to accrue after death makes for a huge indictment of most religions.
Do you have scientific proof discrediting the notion of an afterlife? I did not think science had reached a conclusion on this point.
That there is no evidence of something does not disprove its existence, does it?
I think that the most science has to say about it is,”There is no evidence of it…” Okay.
It’s a “huge indictment” that people believe in an afterlife? How so?
For most Christians in my circles, we speak of striving to live into God’s Realm. That realm of God is the sharing of what we have in our communities here and now, working with and for the poor in the here and now, preaching (along with Jesus and others), “good news to the poor, release for the captives, the sharing of our wealth,” in the here and now, as it will be in the realm to come.
Do we have evidence of the realm to come? No.
Does that matter? Is that the reason for living as we’re living now? No, the reason for living as we live is that our faith tradition teaches us this is the right way to live.
Will I be disappointed if this is all there is?
No, I’m not (we’re not) living for some pie in the sky by and by, we’re living for the here and now, as our faith tradition teaches us.
As to your Mother Teresa dig, I don’t really know about her as much as I do the others mentioned. I’m sure she was a fallible person. I’m sure she probably held positions that I disagree with and may even find horrible.
I’m also relatively sure that she has probably done more to help the poor than Hitchens has, even if she did so less than perfectly.
No need to have disproof. Those making an outrageous claim need to show proof. There is none whatsoever. Your trying to turn it around is dishonest. It shows you have no argument.
People are spending their lives preparing for something that will never happen. There is no evidence of it being possible to happen. They should spend their life doing the right thing now, for self and others., instead of waiting for afterlife rewards. It is exactly that attitude which crashed planes into building.
Do religious people only do good and abstain doing evil only because of fear of god and a poor afterlife? How pathetic and immoral that is.
After you state that you really don’t know much about Mother Teresa, you spew this ridiculous assumption, followed by a demeaning statement for someone else you know little about. How dishonest of you – and you try to represent yourself as a representative of a religious person. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Learn about Mother Teresa:
Thanks to the work of Christopher Hitchens it is possible to see the truth about Mother Teresa who nobody dares criticize.
She aided the evil Duvalier family of Haiti and buttered them up. She got a million dollars from Charles Keating and kept it ignoring requests to her to return it after she knew he had stolen the money. She has opposed the human right to divorce, contraception and abortion and the rights of secular people. She thought she knew it all. It was okay for her to campaign against these things for she never needed them. She was an epitome of the reprehensible selfishness that exists in the worst fundamentalist Christians. She even said that poverty was a gift from God. She accepted the vicious idea that the purpose of suffering is for the betterment of character. She refused to use anything in her clinics to relieve pain for she accepted the Catholic doctrine that suffering is a good thing. She checked into the best hospitals in the world when she was sick herself and anything was good enough for the poor she used to create her grand and glorious image.
…and that is just the start. Do a Google search and teach yourself some more.
She also didn’t really believe in god either. She admitted that before she died.
Your trying to turn it around is dishonest. It shows you have no argument.
I thought I was pretty honest in saying I HAVE no argument, no proof. Never said otherwise. Only faith that this belief in an afterlife seems right to me.
So, I don’t see how it’s dishonest if I’m being upfront that I have no argument. I was just asking if you have an argument to “prove” that there is none. You don’t either. So here we are, two people with no argument, seems to me.
I asked how it’s an indictment that my faith tradition believes in an afterlife. Your response…
People are spending their lives preparing for something that will never happen.
Again, I thought I was pretty clear that at least those in MY faith tradition do not do this. We’re living into this realm in the here and now because we think it’s right. It’s not preparation as much as living into. And we live into that realm because we think it’s the right way to live here and now, NOT because of some possible pie in the sky by and by.
So, I can’t see how there’s any validity to the “preparing for something that’s not going to happen” charge, at least with my faith tradition.
Do you have any other reason for suggesting it’s a “huge indictment” for us to believe as we do?
Bob said…
Do religious people only do good and abstain doing evil only because of fear of god and a poor afterlife? How pathetic and immoral that is.
I agree, that is a poor reason to live aright. But it’s not my reasoning, nor the reasoning of those in my faith tradition.
Bob…
. They should spend their life doing the right thing now, for self and others., instead of waiting for afterlife rewards.
Again, if you’ll look at what I wrote, this is EXACTLY where my faith tradition leads me. Here’s what I said…
Is that the reason for living as we’re living now? No, the reason for living as we live is that our faith tradition teaches us this is the right way to live.
Will I be disappointed if this is all there is?
No, I’m not (we’re not) living for some pie in the sky by and by, we’re living for the here and now, as our faith tradition teaches us…
Is that different than what you are suggesting? It doesn’t sound like it to me.
As to your concerns about Mother Teresa, I am not an apologist for her, I’m not especially familiar with all the details of her life. I do know that, as I find on wikipedia, she started a charity that…
at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children’s and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools.
I don’ t know much about Hitchens, either, other than he sounds like a bitter and unpleasant fellow when I have read his writings. Nonetheless, I have not heard that Hitchens has come close to doing as much as Mother Teresa did in terms of helping the poor. Am I mistaken? Has he opened up hospitals? Lived with the poor? Assisted them in any great way?
I’m open to learning more about Hitchens, if there’s more to learn.
Did Teresa “aid the Duvalier” family? In what way? They were certainly not a force for good in the world, and I would condemn assisting them in their immoral actions. Did she do this?
Again, my point is not that Teresa was a perfect person, just that she did a great deal of good for the poor, more than I’m familiar with Hitchens having done.
But that’s not my greater point, either. I’m not speaking of any individual, just that many people of faith have done much great good for the world because of their faith. If it turns out that Teresa was a monster, then I would just drop her name from the list and add another believer who I am more familiar with.
Fair enough?
>blockquote>
So here we are, two people with no argument, seems to me.
Pay attention, Dan, you have a comprehension problem. You accuse me of saying things I did not say.
Your telling me to DISPROVE a god is what is dishonest. Do you get it this time?
I need no argument, you do. You state you have none. Done. QED. Trying to make me disprove is dishonest.
Getting back to my comment before:
I asked to show why religion is useful. You have not supplied anything that can also be done by the non-religious. You claim to back away from most religious dogma. So tell me what purpose religion is serving that can be accomplished otherwise? You back away personally from using the lie of an afterlife to comfort or entice behavior but that certainly does not counter the indictment of religions which do it.
Studies have shown that religions are extremely poor in using money donated to help others. Way too much of the money (most of it) is not actually used to help anybody, but to proselytize, build church buildings, pay salaries etc.
NGOs are far more efficient is using money to help others. On top of that are funds such as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that are even more efficient. So tell me how religions are useful?
By serving as a good guide.
How is meditation helpful? How is study or contemplation helpful? At their best, by helping provide framework for good action.
Do you suppose slavery would have ended as soon as it did if people of faith had not helped lead the way in opposing it?
How about the Civil Rights movement? Where would it have been if not for people of faith?
What about the changes in an interest in social justice that came about as a result (at least partially) from the so-called “Great Awakenings,” where issues from Indian and African American rights, to women’s rights to the plight of the poor became a central focus of many of the faithful?
Would the push to stop the oppression in Latin America have happened as quickly and successfully as it did if it weren’t for the leadership of the Christian community?
I don’t know. But I DO know that the faithful had important parts in all of these issues. Some might guess that those with no faith tradition, no belief in anything greater than them, might develop a self-centered, “what’s best for me” kind of an attitude. That is certainly a temptation for all of humanity, I think. Faith systems, at their best, help call us above that baser egocentric world.
This is how, at least to me, faith helps us as individuals and as a world.
So tell me how religions are useful?
If you don’t mind a quote from wiki-answers…
A vast majority of schools and hospitals were started by Christians. The Church is still the largest single provider of health care on the planet in some of the poorest locations. Christians also pioneered Social Work and campaigned for laws to protect children from abuse.
Also:
•Pioneering foster care
•Free schooling for poor children
•Free health care for terminally ill
•Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
•Society for the Protection of Children
•Temperance movement to address alcohol abuse
•Alcoholics (& Narcotics) Anonymous
•Worlds largest orphanage system
•Pioneered modern famine relief
•Fair Trade for poor nations
•Debt relief for the poor
•World literacy
•Development of Kindergartens
•Education for deaf
•Braille system
•Abolitionist Movement – slave trade
•Child Sponsorship
•Habitat for Humanity – housing for the poor
•Micro-finance for poor communities
•Pioneering education for women
•Pioneers of Social Work
•Almshouses cared for the elderly and disabled
For example…
As an aside Bob, about these comments…
Pay attention, Dan, you have a comprehension problem. You accuse me of saying things I did not say.
Your telling me to DISPROVE a god is what is dishonest. Do you get it this time…
You come across as hostile and as if you are looking for a fight. Life’s too short to be irritated about comments on a blog somewhere when there are serious things to get upset about. Perhaps you aren’t being hostile and punchy, and it’s just sounding that way to me. If so, I am sorry.
It is entirely possible that I have a comprehension problem, I’m a fallible fella capable of making mistakes. I hope that you can find it within yourself to be charitable towards me in that regards. I’m doing my best.
As to “accusing you of saying things…,” I went back and can’t see where I did so. In fact, your response doesn’t seem to be in response to my comment at all, or (and perhaps you’re right), I’m just being slow to comprehend things. But for the sake of this slow old man, perhaps you could clarify, if the point is worth clarifying.
I don’t believe I DID “tell you to disprove a god,” did I? What I did was ask a question:
Do you have scientific proof discrediting the notion of an afterlife?
My point being that I neither have proof that an afterlife or god exists, nor do I have disproof. I wasn’t telling you to disprove anything, it was a question meant for clarification’s purposes.
Michael, no offense intended to Brother Bob here, but he seems to be arguing with the same lack of grace and bit of an edge that Brother Neil does over at his place. Both seem to strike me as a bit of the fundamentalist-type that, I think, can be problematic for those who wish to communicate, not argue.
Do you think that atheists can be every bit as fundamentalistic as theists?
SOME atheists can be every bit as fundamentalistic as SOME theists, is what I meant to say…
Once again, none of your arguments are things only religion can do. All toothless arguments.
Aldo, now you stop giving reasonable arguments and complain about tone. That is another tactic used by those with nothing of value to say. Pathetic.
Wow.
Peace, brother. We’re not at war.
I’d say that, if you were representative of atheists, your behavior would be yet another reason for Christianity (or at least some faith tradition to increase the peace).
But then, I’m relatively sure that you’re not representative.
Dan, I expected someone like you, a theist who had no arguments, to resort to ad hominems. It is so characteristic of those who lose. Pathetic.
Funny.
He is certainly not representative. Unfortunately, as with everything else, a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.
Not that I’m an atheist. I know quite a few, and almost none of them have hatred for religion, they just don’t believe and more importantly they don’t care if other people do.
It’s a tremendously unprovable thing to say that the world would be better without religion. Incidentally the atheists that make this argument rely on the same lack of evidence that Christians (for example) rely on when asked to prove God.
No evidence either way means no one is right and a position can be found on either side.
Nate…
. Unfortunately, as with everything else, a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.
Agreed. Perhaps I’ve traveled the wrong circles in the blogosphere, but the only other place I’ve previously encountered this sort of hostility and lack of grace is amongst more fundamentalist Christians (and more fundamentalist folk of other faith traditions).
Any time someone insists there way is the One True Way and all others are infidels that can be treated rudely, I have my doubts right away about that belief system.
Nate…
It’s a tremendously unprovable thing to say that the world would be better without religion
Agreed. That’s why after asking, “Where would the peace movement, the civil rights movement, etc, etc, be without people of faith?” I answered…
I don’t know. But I DO know that the faithful had important parts in all of these issues.
Some might guess that those with no faith tradition, no belief in anything greater than them, might develop a self-centered, “what’s best for me” kind of an attitude. That is certainly a temptation for all of humanity, I think. Faith systems, at their best, help call us above that baser egocentric world.
It is important to note the all truths are exclusive.
By that I mean if you believe there is no God you can’t totally shrug off the fact that other people believe. Just as I, being a catholic, believe that I’m right and everyone else is wrong.
Of course it isn’t really that simple, I don’t think all other religions are wrong, but since I truly believe what I believe, as does Bob, we can’t really be comfortable with other people disagreeing. At least not completely.
The trick is not to be a complete ass. It only helps the other side of a debate.
we can’t really be comfortable with other people disagreeing. At least not completely
Well, no, not completely.
But I’m not going to beat someone up over something I can’t prove one way or t’other, even if I deeply believe it.
And not being a complete ass is always a good thing, seems to me.
“But I’m not going to beat someone up over something I can’t prove one way or t’other, even if I deeply believe it.”
That’s exactly what I mean.