Is Evolution a religion?

[Horatio Nelson]

I personally believe it is. Because evolutionary scientists say that evolution happened over millions of years at an extremely slow rate. How can they know this to be "fact" if they weren't there to witness it?

I want to know what you guys think.

(Please try your best to keep this argument civil and don't reduce yourself to name calling.)

[Vlerchan]

http://www.faseb.org/portals/2/PDFs/opa/What%20is%20Evolution%20and%20How%20Do%20We%20Know%20it.pdf

I'm sure Gigablue will be along shortly to add to the above.

[thathelperguy]

No it isn't.

[StoppingTime]

http://www.faseb.org/portals/2/PDFs/opa/What%20is%20Evolution%20and%20How%20Do%20We%20Know%20it.pdf

I'm sure Gigablue will be along shortly to add to the above.

Most important to this thread in my opinion is the following paragraph from the above source
Evolution is not a phenomenon of the past. It is an active process occurring even now. The emergence of new strains of influenza, drug-resistant cancer cells, and pesticide-resistant insects demonstrate that the genetic makeup of populations changes over time by the process of natural selection. Within the population of influenza viruses, for example, some viruses are naturally resistant to the drugs used to treat them. As a result, the resistant viruses survive and reproduce and new influenza vaccines must be created to treat the newly evolved strain. Laboratory experiments also demonstrate evolution in action. Using rapidly reproducing species such as bacteria, yeast, and fruit flies, scientists have shown that altering the environmental conditions in which these organisms exist can induce genetic changes within the population.

______

To TL;DR even more, evolution and natural selection aren't phenomena that have to happen over millions of years. What I'm guessing you, OP, were thinking of most prominently in making this thread was human evolution, which did evolve from a common ancestor over thousands of years. But as this source and hundreds of others prove, that's not how evolution, by definition, is carried out. So no, it's not a religion

[abc983055235235231a]

Exactly what the above poster said.

Evolution is just a name we give to the natural process by which lifeforms develop. We observe evolution every single day. We all look different due to genetic variation. This is a scientific fact. And natural selection literally just refers to things dying.
Evolution is what you get when you have genetic variation alongside natural selection.

[Karkat]

It isn't even a 'religion' by definition.

re·li·gion noun \ri-ˈli-jən\
: the belief in a god or in a group of gods

: an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods

: an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group

I mean, you could argue that it is by the last definition- but that would make just about anything else in the world a religion, essentially nullifying the word "religion" for what it is altogether.

In short, sure, you can consider evolution a religion if you want to mock every theist and atheist out there.

[Gigablue]

First, let's be clear about what we mean when we say evolution. Evolution is the change in gene frequency in a population over time. That's all it is. There are hypotheses and mechanisms explaining the causes of evolution (natural selection, artificial selection, genetic drift, etc), hypotheses about the tempo (phyletic gradualism vs punctuated equilibrium), and there are hypotheses about what evolved from what (the evolution of humans from early primate ancestors, birds from theropod dinosaurs, tetrapods from lobe finned fish, etc. Each of these specific questions must be addressed on its own.

Does evolution happen. Yes. That much is indisputable. Bacterial resistance is the result of evolution in response to a selective pressure. All the crops and livestock we have today are the result of evolution be artificial selection. We have observed evolution happening in real time.

I assume that isn't, however, the type of evolution that you are talking about. You probably mean the evolution between species, over millions of years. However, there is only one type of evolution. Over a short amount of time, small changes are produced, while over a long period of time, large changes are produced.

I don't see how evolution can be called a religion. Evolution makes no claim of the supernatural. Evolution has no set doctrine, rather it follows the evidence where it leads. Evolution doesn't demand any form of worship. There is no higher power that all evolutionary biologists believe in. I simply don't see how evolution fits the definition of a religion.

[Karkat]

I don't see how evolution can be called a religion. Evolution makes no claim of the supernatural. Evolution has no set doctrine, rather it follows the evidence where it leads. Evolution doesn't demand any form of worship. There is no higher power that all evolutionary biologists believe in. I simply don't see how evolution fits the definition of a religion.

It doesn't, that's the point. :rolleyes: I think OP should've looked up the definition of religion beforehand.

[sqishy]

If you include the theory of evolution in a set of beliefs or the theory of evolution simply as a belief in itself without seeing the logic in it, then you are seeing it in a religious way, yes. Otherwise it's pushing it to say the theory of evolution as a religion.

[Karkat]

If you include the theory of evolution in a set of beliefs or the theory of evolution simply as a belief in itself without seeing the logic in it, then you are seeing it in a religious way, yes.

Yeah, but problem is, when you start seeing it in that way, you could literally say ANYTHING is a religion. You can just as easily worship a random garden stone, or John Lennon, and you will literally be more religious than you would be for believing the theory of evolution...

[jaylou]

studying evolution is like being a cop who is solving a crime. he was not there to see it but still can piece together what happen by looking at the evidence.

[sqishy]

Yeah, but problem is, when you start seeing it in that way, you could literally say ANYTHING is a religion. You can just as easily worship a random garden stone, or John Lennon, and you will literally be more religious than you would be for believing the theory of evolution...

I said it in the wrong way then. If you believe in anything in a religious way and/or using it as an absolute truth or viewpoint, then yes anything can be part of your religious beliefs. But I don't thin anything is a religion unless you want it to be, an object can't be a religion by itself, doesn't make sense.

[Karkat]

I said it in the wrong way then. If you believe in anything in a religious way and/or using it as an absolute truth or viewpoint, then yes anything can be part of your religious beliefs. But I don't thin anything is a religion unless you want it to be, an object can't be a religion by itself, doesn't make sense.

Well neither can a god. The point being that you can revolve yourself around belief in something, and make it a 'religion', but there's a certain limit on what is actually taken seriously as one. Plus, you have to kind of acknowledge something as a religion. I don't think anyone who believes in the theory of evolution would consider it their religion, or worship Darwin or something. I'm sure there's the odd nutter out there, but that doesn't make it so.

The point is that religion tends to be revolved around the spiritual and supernatural. It tends to be sacred in nature, and involve worship and ritual.

When you take religion to mean "believing that something is absolute"/etc., you're kind of defeating the purpose.

[Gamma Male]

Lets see...
Religion: Worship of a diety or dieties.
Evolution: A biological process of change that occurs due to natural selection.

Nope.

[Miserabilia]

Title of this thread made me laugh.

I personally believe it is. Because evolutionary scientists say that evolution happened over millions of years at an extremely slow rate. How can they know this to be "fact" if they weren't there to witness it?
You don't have to witness anything as long as you have evidence.
People can get arrested for a crime without eye witnesses as long as the evidence points to them, right?

Also, nothing is worshipped and no beleifs are held within evolution it's not a beleif so it's not a religion.

[Horatio Nelson]

Here, read this: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab2/is-evolution-a-religion

[Jean Poutine]

Here, read this: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab2/is-evolution-a-religion

roflmao

When asked if anyone has ever seen one type of creature change into another, the answer is always no. Confronted with this, the evolutionists will usually counter that it happens too slowly to be seen. The claim is that it takes millions of years for these painfully slow processes to occur. Well then, if the process is too slow to be seen, how do we know it happened at all? After all, no one was there to observe all these organisms slowly changing into more complex forms. Also, there is no way in the present to test or repeat what happened in the past. Any conclusions about things that are not testable in the present must be based on improvable assumptions about the untestable past.

Uh, people have actually witnessed an organism evolving and adapting to consume nutrients that it doesn't consume in nature because that's all there was for food. It's called the Lenski experiment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

So basically this whole paragraph's bullshit.

One supposed evidence for evolution is that life began spontaneously in the earth’s vast oceans approximately three billion years ago.3 Textbooks, magazines, and television documentaries constantly bombard us with this so-called fact. Just what is the evidence for the evolution of life from nonliving molecules? There isn’t any! There is no method to determine what the earth’s “ancient atmosphere” was like or the composition of the oceans at that time.4 No one was there to test or examine that environment. No one can say with certainty what the chemical makeup of the primordial oceans was. So how can it be claimed that simple proteins and nucleic acids arose spontaneously?

Abiogenesis has absolutely nothing zero zilch nada to do with evolution. This is completely retarded.

Based on our knowledge of these molecules using observational science in the present, it is difficult to imagine these processes happening by naturalistic processes. No scientific observation has ever shown how these complex molecules could arise spontaneously, let alone evolve simultaneously and assemble themselves in such a way as to become alive. One prominent evolutionist, Leslie Orgel, notes, “And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.”

Three words : Miller-Urey experiment.

One of the primary evidences used to support the theory of evolution is the fossil record. Evolutionists have long proposed that the fossilized remains of dead organisms, both plant and animal, found in the rock layers prove that life has evolved on the earth over millions of years. Using observational science, how can this conclusion be reached? There are only the fossils themselves to examine. These fossils only exist in the present. There is no method to determine directly what happened to these creatures; neither to determine how they died, nor how they were buried in the sediment, nor how long it took for them to fossilize. Although it is possible to make up a story to explain the fossil record, this contrived story does not meet the criteria for true scientific investigation. A story about the past cannot be scientifically tested in the present.

Uhh, carbon date testing and micro/macroevolutive steps from one fossil to the next. Fossil layers actually show pretty decently how organisms mutated until they could be conceived as different species. It's even all neatly organized for our viewing pleasure. It's called logic. There are transitional fossils. To claim otherwise is up front lying. As was said before, there is no real difference between micro and macroevolution, except the period of time over which the changes happened.

Some remains are so well preserved that it is very possible to know how the organism came to die.

Hey, this SS uniform only exists in the present - how am I supposed to know that the man wearing it died?

Maybe by the humongous bloodstains and all the bullet holes?

The creationist looking at the fossil record reaches a far different conclusion from the evolutionist. To the creationist, the fossils in the rocks represent the result of a global cataclysm with massive sedimentation rapidly burying millions upon millions of creatures. This catastrophic event would account not only for the fossil record but also for the rock layers themselves. (Deposition of sediment in layers would have resulted from sorting in the turbulent Flood and post-Flood waters.) So which viewpoint is correct? Neither the creationist’s nor the evolutionist’s explanation can be tested in the present.

Bahahahahaha

Yeah, the fossil layers were built in days due to a global flood. What a fucking joke. Not only the planet wouldn't have been able to support this much life if it all had existed jointly, but this completely ignores the fact that each layer can be dated to a pretty precise period of time, composing millions of years in total.

Unless Noah spent literally almost forever in his Ark, the flood never happened and obviously can't explain the fossil layers.

But in this regard the creationist does have evidence. Evidence is found in a book called the Bible. The Bible claims to be the Word of God. It is a record of what God did and when He did it. In the Bible we learn how life began—God created it. The Bible helps us understand the fossil record—much of it is the result of a worldwide flood as described in Genesis 6–8. Like the historical documents that establish George Washington existed, we have a reliable historical document called the Bible to give us answers about our origin and about our world.

An evolutionist has no historical documentation for his viewpoint. He relies on the assumptions of historical science for support. Herein lies a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose and potential of science. Scientific inquiry properly involves the investigation of processes that are observable, testable, and repeatable. The origin and development of life on earth cannot be observed, tested, or repeated because it happened in the past.

Since when is the Bible history? Since never.

All this paragraph does is assert - without any evidence - that the Bible is inerrant and the literal word of Da Lawd. The Bible is not proof of anything. It's literally insignificant as a tool to understand the world around us. The only thing it is : it's a collection of creation myths, fables and legends from a certain Middle Eastern tribe that has no more value than whatever the Xhosa, the Hmong or the Cherokee have as creation myths.

It's special pleading. "We say our myth is right so it is right". The world doesn't work like that. Wake up.

So, is evolution observable science? No, evolution falls under the realm of historical science; it is a belief system about the past. How can an evolutionist believe these things without rigorous scientific proof? The answer is that he wants to. Evolutionists are quite sincere in their beliefs, but ultimately these beliefs are based on their view that the world originated by itself through totally naturalistic processes. There is a term for this type of belief system—that term is religion.

This falls flat on its face ever since we have had ample evidence that microevolution occurs. Evolution is observable science. We have seen it happen. Evolution is common knowledge and is not in the realm of faith like Christianity is.

Again, abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution. Anybody who completed Grade 9 science knows this. Evolution isn't a theory on the origin of life.

The rest is basically hogwash about how Christianity is the "only true real religion". I won't even read it, it's that pathetic.

Do not ever link Answers in Genesis again. It's a fundamentalist Christian site trying to masquerade the Bible as science, they have no respect for evidence, logic or facts, and they try way too hard to stay relevant. It's almost comical.

[darkangel91]

No offense, but that really is the dumbest question I've ever heard. Evolution is a scientific theory subject to revision, not a superstitious dogma.

[AgentHomo]

No. Evolution is scientific fact, proven by Darwin and further being proven by Dawkins.

[Miserabilia]

No offense, but that really is the dumbest question I've ever heard. Evolution is a scientific theory subject to revision, not a superstitious dogma.

^ this

[phuckphace]

arguing about this is a waste of time, nobody's going to walk away with a different opinion than when they started so why bother?

[Miserabilia]

arguing about this is a waste of time, nobody's going to walk away with a different opinion than when they started so why bother?

This isn't even something to argue about. This isn't even an opinion. Evolution is by definition not a religion, it's a process. /lol

[phuckphace]

This isn't even something to argue about. This isn't even an opinion. Evolution is by definition not a religion, it's a process. /lol

I agree, but the OP has already made up his mind what he wants to believe so you might as well not wear out your fingers trying to change that. I used to get deeply involved in these kinds of debates but eventually I learned it's a waste of time

[Miserabilia]

I agree, but the OP has already made up his mind what he wants to believe so you might as well not wear out your fingers trying to change that. I used to get deeply involved in these kinds of debates but eventually I learned it's a waste of time

No I mean this isn't even a debate and it's not about the OP's "beleifs", the statement is by definition wrong, the only thing to debate here would be epistomology and language itself /:

[Emerald Dream]

Locked at OP request. :locked: