Evolution has nothing to do with religion (or the lack thereof)

I usually try and stay away from talking about evolution on this blog. It’s been covered a million times over by other people. I really avoid it because of the people who argue against it. They are a special brand of crazy and a waste of time to try and communicate with. There are towering mountains of evidence for evolution that have been built up over centuries, but these people will have none of it, thus I don’t waste my time “debating” evolution. Yet more and more lately I’ve been running into people who like to equate evolution with atheism. Evolution has nothing to do with atheism. (Another reason I try and avoid it on this blog) Here, let me draw you a little chart:

You see, there are people who accept the theory of evolution as fact the same way they accept the theory of gravity, germ theory, and atomic theory as fact. (“Theory” in science is NOT the same “theory” used in everyday speech, it doesn’t mean “a guess”) Of these people who accept evolution, some are Christians, some are Atheists. It doesn’t matter what their positions on religion are, evolution has nothing to do with religion. What does the theory of gravity have to say on religion? Nothing. It doesn’t take a stance on religion.

But doesn’t evolution say god didn’t make us?  No, evolution says nothing on how we got here, that would be abiogensis. Evolution is a process. This process goes on every day right in front of our eyes. If you like evolution to a truck, natural selection is the engine. (There is a difference)

Here is a really simple analogy that we see every year: Football teams. How does a football team go from just a football team to super-bowl champions? They evolve. The games throughout the season are a form of natural selection. If a team wins, it moves up, if it doesn’t, it falls behind. The strongest and most skilled teams win and thus move up. There is nobody standing in the sky arbitrarily picking this team to move up and that team to move down. The teams battle it out and the ones that are more fit/skilled/talented move closer to the playoffs.

Going from just any football team to the superbowl is the process of evolution. Winning games (natural selection) is what makes that process exist.

We see this same simple process everywhere. It’s in medicine, in the market place (capitalism anyone? Well marketed ideas make money, poor ones die out), in politics, in science, and in nature. Anywhere this is competition there is evolution. It has nothing to do with religion, just like the superbowl analogy has nothing to do with religion. Yet despite this there are people who insist on linking the two together.

If you really want to learn something check out the “made easy” videos.

Natural Selection made easy

Evolution made easy