As a reminder, I offered a while back to answer questions here on the blog. Fortunately we have another one from our friend David:

Hey Dustin,

All of your comments on evolution vs. intelligent design being taught in school has got me thinking. I understand your position on intelligent design being taught in school in regards to religion. But as I have been thinking about this it has left me wondering how teaching evolution in school is any better than teaching intelligent design in school. Allow me to explain.

Webster’s dictionary defines religion as “A personal set, or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs or practices.” I think that you can agree that everyone has a personal set of beliefs including their beliefs about religion whether they believe in God or not. While, to my knowledge, there is no official, centralized atheist institution, there are organizations with the goal to provide community for atheists similar to the way a religious church would create a community for fellow believers. You, as a professed, atheist identify yourself with a group of people who believe in evolution. Given this definition of religion, I would argue that atheism is a religion.

I would agree that teaching intelligent design, specifically creationism, is promoting the belief in a God, or higher being. Therefore “forcing” religion on the students. However, teaching evolution does the same thing to those who believe in intelligent design. By teaching evolution in schools, the curriculum is denying that a God, or higher being exists. Therefore forcing the “religion”/beliefs of atheism on students who believe in God.

If you want to be fair and just. Both theories should be taught, or neither. You can’t expect christian students to learn a creation theory contrary to what they believe any more than you can ask an atheist student to learn intelligent design.

Your thoughts?

David

Atheism is not a religion. Atheism is not a set or system of beliefs, it is simply the lack of one specific belief. There are no religious attitudes (beliefs, feelings, tradition, faith, etc) or practices (cultic rituals, traditions, etc). Thus I would have to say that it clearly is not a religion.

Yes, many atheists do share similar worldviews, ethical systems, and epistimolocial systems. Some atheists even form groups with like minded people. One group I’m apart of is a naturalistic club. Everybody in the group holds a naturalistic worldview. When we get together we talk about science. I recently led a discussion that was as far from science as we have gotten and it was on naturalistic theories of morality. The other groups are just people with something in common getting together in a friendly environment to hang out for a few hours. These groups are vastly different from any religious service I’ve ever been to (from about 10 or so different religious traditions), they more closely resemble what you might find at any club organized on any topic.

Humans do need to have worldviews, ethical systems, epistemological systems, and community. You get yours from a religion, that does not mean that mine make up a religion.

While we are in agreement that evolution and Christianity are not compatible, there are a lot of Christians who disagree. Ken Miller is a fine example of a devout believer who fully accepts evolutionary fact and theory. He even wrote a book on evolution called, Finding Darwin’s God. While I haven’t read it yet, it has come highly recommended and is on my lengthy list of books to read.

Evolution is not a belief of atheism, it is science. It is the fundamental facts and theories behind biology, just as gravity and special relativity are for cosmology. Evolution is also not the only thing in science which contradicts certain religious beliefs and the Bible itself, so does the view that the world is round, that the Earth orbits the Sun, and that diseases are caused by viruses and microbes. Where the difference is, comes that with out an Adam and Eve there is no fall, whereas if the Earth doesn’t have four corners, then its no big deal.

Intelligent Design (ID) in its purest form has nothing to say about the facts of evolution, namely common decent. To be blunt, it really doesn’t have anything to say at all. Let me sum it up for you. “Bacteria flagella, the human eye, and the acid squirter on the bombardier beetle are all really complicated, so complicated that it hurts my brain to try to figure out how they developed, so someone or something that we won’t name must have designed it.”

To say that all life has come from a common ancestor (the fact of evolution) and that Natural Selection (the theory of evolution) is generally a sufficient explanation, but that in a few rare cases we need a God of the gaps, is not an answer. It certainly isn’t science.

Creationism is a different, although closely related, non-scientific position that rejects all of the evidence in favor of a text from the Iron Age.

Let me be clear here:

• Evolution (common descent) is a scientific fact. Facts should be taught in school.
• Natural selection is the the only scientifically viable explanatory theory for evolution, as such it should also be taught in school.
• Intelligent Design is nothing more than a “God of the gaps” argument with NO scientific credibility.
• Creationism is a complete denial of science in favor of an ancient myth.

I’ve had a class that taught the controversy. It was presented by two professors at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary who were trying to acquaint us with the evidence for both sides while not hiding their bias for creationism. Even though they presented a very weak and outdated version of evolution, it was much more convincing than creationism.

I would be OK with teaching both sides (or all three) since it’s pretty clear when you look at the evidence which one is science. Unfortunately education in the US is falling way behind the rest of the world. It would be a complete waste of valuable time to present ID and creationism in a science class. Let’s leave science classes for real science.