Evolution and atheism (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, February 18, 2013, 18:16 (4297 days ago) @ George Jelliss

GEORGE: The conflict between evolution and deism is simply that 
it renders the idea of a creator god redundant, 
and moreover since human consciousness has evolved, 
raises the question of where the deity evolved from, 
but all that could indeed be considered a metaphysical argument.-I see these as two separate arguments. Evolution explains how the earliest forms of life developed into a vast variety of species by means of heritable adaptations and innovations. However, it does NOT explain how life itself and the mechanisms for heredity, adaptation and innovation first came into being. These are so complex ... even in the simplest forms of life ... that it requires a quasi-religious faith to believe they could be assembled by sheer luck, which is why some people believe in a creator god who must have designed them. If you argue that faith in chance makes a creator god redundant, you can just as well argue that faith in a creator god makes chance redundant. Both faiths, however, relate to the mechanisms that enable evolution to occur. No conflict between evolution itself and belief in a god.-The second argument ... where did the deity come from? - elicits the same answer as where did the mechanisms come from? Nobody knows. And since there is no more evidence for this unknown, eternal, self-made, self-aware creative power than there is for the creative power of chance, it requires the same degree of faith. However, setting aside creationist dogmatism, that still doesn't lead to any conflict between evolution and belief in a god. Evolution cannot happen until there are living things to evolve; and so if I may repeat myself for the umpteenth time, evolution is Chapter 2 in the history of life. Chapter 1 is about origins, and THAT is the subject of the conflict.