I have written on this subject before, so I won’t repeat myself here. I do, however, want to share with you another quote I stumbled on, reinforcing why it is that evolution and theism are logically incompatible. In “Darwin Would Put God Out of Business,” David Klinghoffer wrote:
When it comes to Darwinian evolution and the challenge it presents to belief in God, a lot of thoughtful men and women seem intent on not facing up to a tough but necessary choice, between Darwin and God.
…
The key point is whether, across hundreds of millions of years, the development of life was guided or not. On one side of this chasm between worldviews are Darwinists, whose belief system asserts that life, through a material mechanism, in effect designed itself. On the other side are theories like intelligent design (ID) which argue that no such purely material mechanism could write the software in the cell, called DNA.
…
To put it starkly, Darwinism would put God out of business. God’s authority to command our behavior is based on His having created us. … If the process that produced existence and then life was not guided, then God is not our creator.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]
It won’t help to say God indirectly created us since He was the one who created the laws of nature responsible for bringing us, and everything else into existence. The eminent evolutionist, William Provine, explains why:
Of course, it is still possible to believe in both modern evolutionary biology and a purposive force, even the Judeo-Christian God. One can suppose that God started the whole universe or works through the laws of nature (or both). There is no contradiction between this or similar views of God and natural selection. But this view of God is also worthless. Called Deism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and considered equivalent to atheism then, it is no different now. A God or purposive force that merely starts the universe or works through the laws of nature has nothing to do with human morals, answers no prayers, gives no life everlasting, in fact does nothing whatsoever that is detectable. In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and indeed all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]
Well said!
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[1]David Klinghoffer, “Darwin Would Put God Outof Business”; available fromhttp://www.beliefnet.com/story/198/story_19844_1.html;Internet; accessed 18 September 2006.
[2]William Provine, review of Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution, by Edward J. Larson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, 224 pp.), in Academe, January 1987, pp.51-52.
Thinking to Believe 
October 17, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Um, I disagree. The Big Bang is closer to the Creation story than anything else I’ve ever seen. And the idea that God might work in ways we do not understand is certainly not foreign to Xianity.
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October 17, 2006 at 10:45 pm
All of science is incompatible with the vast majority of religions. Exceptions may include Scientific Pantheism which accomodates itself to science and possibly some types of non-literal beliefs and possibley even some Earth and nature based religions. Of course a person can believe in a deity and accept biological evolution, Pope John Paul II sure did as do many Catholics. Of course science remains incompatible with such ideas because comparing a scientific theory to a religious belief is like comparing apples to marmosets, I mean a similarity might exist here or there, but considering most religion is about there being some infallible word of a specific or a group of specific deities while science is only about the evidence that exists around us, not bronze age myths the two are almost entirely different. Science changes through the years, while religions may change it is usually because people change and the baseline of accepted behavior shifts. For instance even though the Bible says to stone girls to death if they have sex before marriage we aren’t doing that because of the shifted ethical baseline. Yes in the bronze age it was just some girl who was worthless now because she was an unmarried deflowered girl, while if she had remained a virgin her father could still sell her into a marriage for a few donkeys or something. Now we look at daughters as human beings, not commodities. We also know much of genesis is wrong if taken literally, and sorry I can’t believe creationists really believe the bullshit they are shoveling, because there is no way a person can see all the evidence and just say, “well scientists are liars because my book say, but even knowing it is wrong many adhere to it as if they have been JB welded to it.
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October 18, 2006 at 5:39 am
“When it comes to Darwinian evolution and the challenge it presents to belief in God, a lot of thoughtful men and women seem intent on not facing up to a tough but necessary choice, between Darwin and God.”
To make matters worse, some evolutionists might even say that the choice is between God and truth!
“The key point is whether, across hundreds of millions of years, the development of life was guided or not. On one side of this chasm between worldviews are Darwinists, whose belief system asserts that life, through a material mechanism, in effect designed itself. On the other side are theories like intelligent design (ID) which argue that no such purely material mechanism could write the software in the cell, called DNA.”
That’s right – since I have no understanding of how a material mechanism could “design itself,” it must be the case that a supernatural deity did it. (And don’t say I believe in the God of the Gaps, or I’ll get upset!)
“To put it starkly, Darwinism would put God out of business. God’s authority to command our behavior is based on His having created us. … If the process that produced existence and then life was not guided, then God is not our creator.”
Oh no! You’re right, Klinghoffer! If God is not our creator, then he wouldn’t have the authority to command us! I don’t like the outcome of these propositions, so it must be the case that God is our creator!
“In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and indeed all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism.”
This proposition, too, makes me uncomfortable. Therefore, atheism must be false and theism must be true.
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March 15, 2013 at 5:30 am
Benson if all you have to add is snark and sarcasm, why bother? Obviously if dislike for the alternative was the only reason one chooses their position, it is unreasonable. That’s not the point of the post though. And it’s certainly not the motivation of the beliefs of the theists here, from what I’ve seen.
Of course, keep in mind this more than works both ways. I have seen many atheist testimonies that amount to a rejection of theology based on an emotional dislike of one or more theological issues (or, specifically, their interpretation of those theological issues). At least we can agree that positions should be taken more soundly.
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March 15, 2013 at 6:12 am
@Wakim
“All of science is incompatible with the vast majority of religions”
That is a wildly generalized and untrue statement. One simply has to look at historic involvement of religion in science and at religious scientists today. Of course, you would simply say they are wrong or lying simply to themselves, but that is your subjective opinion. Recall that science is simply a method of inquiry into the empirical universe. It makes no conclusions. Its employers do.
While some religions do have supposedly infallible texts, the large majority of those texts do not pertain to scientific claims (rather, history and morals). The parts that do can be taken on a case by case basis and are often subject to interpretation, which is not unreasonable.
You go on to say how science changes over time, as do some religious interpretations and practises, while the majority of a religion does not. I don’t think anyone disagrees. Both make sense.
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